As we celebrate that First Saturday devotion today in honor of Our Lady of Fatima, we commemorate Elizabeth Ann Seton, (1774 - 1821) as the saint of the day. She is the first canonized American born saint, named a saint in 1975 by Pope Paul VI. She founded the first congregation of religious sisters to be founded in the United States. She is the patron saint of Catholic schools and of widows, as she became a consecrated religious sister after becoming a widow, with her husband dying from tuberculosis, after 1803. She converted to Catholicism as a widow. She was very instrumental in founding the parochial system of schools in the American Catholic Church. Pope Paul VI had this to say about her at her canonization: “Elizabeth Ann Seton is a saint. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is an American. All of us say this with special joy, and with the intention of honoring the land and the nation from which she sprang forth as the first flower in the calendar of the saints. Elizabeth Ann Seton was wholly American! Rejoice for your glorious daughter. Be proud of her. And know how to preserve her fruitful heritage.”
Our psalm states today: “All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God.” We see the saving power of God in different ways. In the way Mary accompanies us on our journey and leads us closer to Christ, we see the saving power of God. We see God in the ways different people work to proclaim God’s kingdom on earth, such as the way St Elizabeth Ann Seton worked in the Catholic schools. May all of us in our words and our actions help others to see the saving power of God.
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