Catholic Teens - January 4, 2005

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 13:51:25 -0600, pwxsevere wrote
> Hey All!
>
> Hope your Christmas was wonderful! San Diego was nice :-) A bit
> warmer then Wisconsin anyway!
>
> Today is the Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. An amazing woman.
> She was a convert to Catholicism, married, had a family, was widowed,
> started a school system, founded a religious order, and was later
> declared a saint. Not a bad life eh? In many ways, she's a role
> model for people who want to "do it all."
>
> A more complete biography follows below.
>
> It's another example of how awesome a life one can have if you
> follow God. Did Elizabeth ever think she would accomplish all of
> the above? Probably not. She just kept saying "yes" to God. For
> that matter, I never expected to be in Stevens Point teaching about
> God..but here I am :-) And who knows what God has in store for me
> next, and for you too.
>
> God bless you!
> Phil Lawson
>
> Born into a wealthy and influential Episcopalian family, the
> daughter of a physician, and raised in the New York high society of
> the late 18th century. Her mother died when Elizabeth was three
> years old, her baby sister a year later. She married the wealthy
> businessman William Magee Seton at age 19, and was the mother of
> five.
>
> About ten years into the marriage, William's business failed, and
> soon after he died of tuberculosis, leaving Elizabeth an
> impoverished widow with five small children. For years Elizabeth had
> felt drawn to Catholicism, believing in the Real Presence in the
> Eucharist and in the lineage of the Church going back to Christ and
> the Apostles. She converted to Catholicism, entering the Church on
> 14 March 1805, alienating many of her strict Episcopalian family in
> the process.
>
> To support her family, and insure the proper education of her
> children, she opened a school in Boston. Though a private and
> secular institution, from the beginning she ran it along the lines
> of a religious community. At the invitation of the archbishop, she
> established a Catholic girl's school in Baltimore, Maryland which
> initiated the parochial school system in America. To run the system
> she founded the Sisters of Charity in 1809, the first native
> American religious community for women.
>
> "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may
> live as you wish." --Mother Teresa

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you
wish." --Mother Teresa