Elizabeth Seton

This was not so much a book of spiritual reading as much as as a biography assembled from the historical archives of the decades around 1800. The author's intention is not to instill a religious devotion to the subject as much as to delve into all the corners of what turns out to be a complex life story. Elizabeth Seton was raised in an Anglican colonial family in Manhattan just about at the time of the American Revolution by a set of parents who were not notably pious themselves. Her physician father was devoted to rationalism and at one point stirred up outrage with his anatomical dissections upon the dead, hoping to make a contribution the the science of medicine. Elizabeth's girlhood is gleaned from her own recollections later on, where she describes a somewhat unconventional spiritual tendency when thinking of the overwhelming power of God. She grew up in the young nation to marry a man of commerce, William Seton, and to become the mother of five children and guardian to six more. But it seemed as though she felt an imperfect fit to her role then, with her Anglican spirituality contrasting with her husband's indifference to the subject. Things change when she and her young daughter accompany him on a trip to Italy where they are detained by the authorities fearing that they carried yellow fever, which leads to his death from tuberculosis not long after. Mother and daughter were forced to turn to the help of the Italian merchant family her husband had worked with, fervent Catholics, who are the means by which she first encounters that variety of religion. The vivid rituals of the Mass and the lavish ornamentation of Italian churches work a powerful attraction for the young widow and she resolves to convert with the new conviction she felt. The pair make their way back to America, where the opposition from the Protestant families comes with force. It was interesting to learn about the degree of anti-Catholic sentiment in New York then, countered by the influence of the one colony with a sizable Catholic population, Maryland, with its influential bishop John Carroll. The rest of the book describes how Elizabeth, accompanied by her children, moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland to start the first American parochial school and to constitute the first congregation of women religious founded in the United States, with herself as their first superior.

I learned a lot from this book about what it was like to live in that time, and got a sense of what impelled its subject to do what she is remembered for. It seems as though it was the effect she had on people who knew her and lived under her rule that what was led to the devotion to her and her canonization, and I wonder whether she would be surprised by this legacy of hers. Mother Seton comes across as a strong personality who fought for what she believed, struggled with doubts, had regrets, and loved the ones she cared for very deeply. I thought it was a good biography that was relatively down to earth to appeal to modern audiences without unduly downplaying the spiritual aspects, a worthwhile book for my Advent reading this year.