Tags
loss, love of God, sorrow, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, teacher, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, women, women religious
I’ve just been reading about the life of Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first American-born saint. She is not a stranger to me. She was born in New York (less than 200 miles from my home) and although she lived from just before the American Revolution until the early 19th century (1774-1821) she was canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic church in 1975 when I had already been teaching for four years in a Catholic high school. It was quite a celebration for the United States, for women, especially women religious, and for teachers to see “one of our own” – in any one or all of those categories – raised to the level of sainthood.
Mother Seton, as she is commonly known, knew many sorrows in her life, losing many loved ones including her parents, husband and several children at a young age. She was, however, always steadfast in her faith – first as an Episcopalian and later a Roman Catholic with a fervent belief in and love of the Eucharist. A reflection on the website http://www.franciscanmedia.com described her as someone who was an ordinary person who led an extraordinary life. “Not a mystic or a stigmatic,” she lived with great faith and said, “God has given me a great deal to do, and I have always and hope always to prefer his will to every wish of my own.” All she needed was the love for God that enabled her to keep going and keep loving. That is a brand of sanctity that is open to all of us and that is the best reason to celebrate Mother Seton on this, her feast day.
Today, sorrow and lament fill the praying world as ritual attempts in word and song and sometimes even gesture to reach the depth of pain that is recalled to us from across the ages as “the scandal of the cross,” the suffering and death of Jesus. If awake enough, we see this suffering repeated again and again in our own time and know it as a vivid manifestation of the pain body of Christ. In that way it becomes our pain as well since we are not separate but merely different cells in that very real and present body.
Having nothing of merit to say on this Tuesday of Holy Week, I search Thomas Merton for a worthy word. Although he never disappoints, I find myself looking unsuccessfully for something soothing to counteract the sorrow of what is to come as this week progresses. I settle for an admission of God’s greatness (the only safeguard for us in distress) and the necessity of surrender if we are to take up our role and responsibility in concert with God.
For so many people I have encountered in so many places recently, life seems to be a continual walk in the dark. For Christians who are following the path of Lent, walking with Jesus ever closer to the events of what we call Holy Week, the heaviness of these days can be an opportunity even as we find our energy sapped by news of a world in deep turmoil. Another school shooting yesterday, panic in Austin, Texas over serial bomb explosions, wildly destructive coastal storms and personal tragedies or disappointments leave us wondering when and how it will all end. Will Easter bring us solace and the promise of new life?
As is often the case, I woke up today with song lyrics in my head. This time it was a familiar text from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, chosen by countless people for a wedding reading. You know it too, I’ll wager. Love is patient, love is kind, love is ready to forgive, sings Jeannie Cotter with David Haas ready to jump in as the lyrics veer off a bit from Paul. The last line of the chorus summarizes the message beautifully, however, when both sing that in love we choose to live. 
Today is not a happy remembrance in the calendar of Church feasts. It is the commemoration of “the Holy Innocents,” the victims of Herod’s massacre of all the baby boys under two years old. Herod was determined to eliminate the possibility that someone – a “new-born” king (Jesus) – would usurp his power. Since he had no idea of where that child might be found, his rage prompted the terrible deed that left so many mothers bereft. It was a fruitless gesture, as violence always is, because Jesus and his parents were well on their way to Egypt when the massacre occurred.
