Elizabeth Seton


Elizabeth Ann Seton -- wife, mother, religious, founder, saint -- was born in New York City on August 28, 1774. She was the daughter of Dr. Richard Bayley and Catherine Charlton Bayley, devout Episcopalians.
At nineteen, Elizabeth married William Magee Seton, a prosperous merchant. Five children were born of the marriage. But hardship was soon to fall on Elizabeth. By 1803, the Seton shipping firm became bankrupt and William's health failed. He died at Pisa, Italy, on December 27, 1803. The Filicchi family, long-time friends of William Seton, continued to befriend Elizabeth and welcomed her into their home in Leghorn. Here Elizabeth encountered Roman Catholicism for the first time.
Elizabeth returned to New York in 1804 and despite the opposition of family and friends, entered the Catholic church in the spring of 1805. She sought to support her family by teaching. Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore invited her to establish a girls school in his diocese. Other young women joined her in this ministry of education and eventually they formed a religious congregation -- the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's.

In 1809, they moved to Emmitsburg, MD, where their motherhouse is still located. The rule of the Daughters of Charity in France, a congregation founded by St. Vincent de Paul, seemed applicable to the new community. Adaptations to this rule were made by Archbishop Carroll and Elizabeth Seton, to suit the American situation and a foundress with a family. It became the rule of the Sisters of Charity, who by the time of Elizabeth's death in 1821, were fifty in number.

Related Links:
www.setonshrine.org

Read the article Another Look at Elizabeth Seton by S. Mary Sweeney

Vincent de Paul
Vincent de Paul was born in 1580 into a peasant family in Gascony, France. He felt the way to both help his family and distance himself from family poverty was to use his native intelligence, become a priest and chaplain to a wealthy family. Once ordained, he became chaplain to the de Gondi family, and was told to minister to the peasants who tilled the land belonging to the family.
The experience of the peasants' spiritual and economic poverty turned his view of being poor upside down. From that point, whatever he did was directed to helping to better the conditions of the poor. One way was to improve the education and formation of their priests. He founded the Congregation of the Mission, a congregation of priests with a mission to the poor.

He also enlisted the help of the wealthy, especially wealthy women, to financially support his efforts to assist the poor. These Ladies of Charity worked with another group Vincent had gathered--poor peasant women who knew firsthand the lot of the poor. These women who wished to dedicate themselves to the service of the poor, distributed food, visited the sick, and organized help for the homeless and the unemployed.
 
Louise de Marillac
Louise de Marillac, a wealthy widow, who worked with Vincent in his efforts for the poor, helped him to coordinate the little Company of peasant women who would serve the poor in their homes, a new form of religious service at that time. This Company became the Daughters of Charity, following a rule Vincent had written. It was this rule that Elizabeth Seton chose and adapted to the conditions of America in the 19th century.