Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Feast of

January 4The first native-born American to be declared a saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821) was canonized in 1975. She was the founder of the first religious community for women in the United States, the American Sisters of Charity, and she was responsible for laying the foundations of the American Catholic school system. She also established orphan asylums, the forerunners of the modern foundling homes and child-care centers run today by the Sisters of Charity.
Special services commemorating Elizabeth Ann Seton's death on January 4, 1821, are held on major anniversaries at the Chapel of St. Joseph's Provincial House of the Daughters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the headquarters for her order of nuns, and at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City, of which she was a member before her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1805. More than 100,000 people attended her canonization ceremony at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. On that same day, over 35,000 pilgrims flocked to Emmitsburg, where six masses were said in honor of the new saint.
See also Seton (Mother) Day
CONTACTS:
The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
333 S. Seton Ave.
Emmitsburg, MD 21727
301-447-6606; fax: 301-447-6061
www.emmitsburg.net
Trinity Episcopal Church
74 Trinity Pl.
New York, NY 10006
212-602-0800
www.trinitywallstreet.org
SOURCES:
AmerBkDays-2000, p. 19
AnnivHol-2000, p. 3