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This article explores the origin and depth of devotion to the Word of God that permeated Elizabeth Bayley Seton’s life and informed her spirituality. The future saint’s early years were suffused with scripture at home and in Anglican/Episcopal services she attended. The deep devotion this engendered was enhanced by her love for poetry, prose, and song. Through her early adult life she was spiritually nourished by the cadences of scripture and the hymns that filled liturgical celebrations. During a brief hiatus during her early adult years, Elizabeth broadened her scope to embrace a variety of intellectual influences. However, her devotion to scripture rekindled as deep family crises engulfed her. The comfort and strength she gained through reliance on her Bible assisted her in navigating enormous changes in her religious, economic, and social circumstances. At the time she converted to Catholicism, the ethos of the U. S. Catholic Church encouraged her to continue this focus. In addition to acquiring her own Catholic edition of the Bible, she deepened her immersion in the scriptures as evidenced by the numerous reflections, prayers, verses, and letters she wrote.

In her third interpretation of Elizabeth Seton’s spirituality within the framework of ecological theology, Sun Hae Kim examines volumes 3a and 3b of Elizabeth’s writings. These volumes cover Elizabeth’s entire life. The presence of God was “the mystery that not only sustained her throughout her life but also united her vision of the entire universe of natural creation and humanity into one.” Kim also puts Elizabeth’s views of creation, humanity, suffering, and death within the context of three ecological theologians: Hildegard of Bingen, Sallie McFague, and Elizabeth A. Johnson. According to Elizabeth, God’s presence “consecrates every part of the universe”; caring for the earth—which is God’s body according to Johnson—is, as Kim says, “an act of obedience to the Creator, who wants all life to flourish.” At the end of time, Elizabeth looked to “the complete transformation of the earth,” which for her involved our salvation and “the glory of the natural world.” Death and suffering, as a part of the natural world, are a part of ecology in which God is present as well. Moreover, “suffering is a mystery that humbles and unites both humans and non-human living beings of the earth.”

This article is a companion to “The Ecological Spirituality of Elizabeth Ann Seton,” which appeared in Vincentian Heritage 32:2 (2015). Using extensive quotations from Elizabeth’s letters, Sung-Hae Kim explores how she practiced ecological principles in her relationships with family, friends, and members of her religious community. Elizabeth’s relationships with her students, parents of students, other benefactors, and church leaders are also discussed. Ecological principles include mutual aid, self-governance, harmony, and balance. Elizabeth used these and others to form interconnected ecological communities. The concept of ecological community is defined, drawing from the work of the philosophers Peter Kropotkin, Henry David Thoreau, and Murray Bookchin. Ecological aspects of the Sisters of Charity’s ministry and of the community’s structure and governance are described.

Elizabeth Seton lost her mother at an early age and felt a deep need for a mother’s care and affection. She eventually found this in her relationship with Mary. When Elizabeth’s beloved husband died, she found solace in Catholicism, particularly because of its veneration of Mary. As a dedicated mother herself, the leader of a new religious community, and a teacher of children and young people, Elizabeth related to Mary’s motherhood. Elizabeth’s affinity for Mary increased because the priests who guided her also loved Mary. Elizabeth made Marian devotion an important aspect of her community’s life; Mary was the role model for the Sisters of Charity.

Christopher Worthman explores the defining characteristics of pre-K through 12th grade Vincentian teacher preparation and how it can ready teachers, regardless of their faith, to teach all student populations in all schools. He explains how the American preoccupation with accountability and standardization in schools is a social justice issue. To discern principles of Vincentian preparation, he uses the work of modern Vincentian scholars and draws on examples from the educational efforts of Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Marguerite Naseau, Frederic Ozanam, and Elizabeth Seton. Worthman identifies three principles: Lucan spirituality, a sense of immediacy, and affective and effective action. Lucan spirituality goes by many names in many faiths. It encourages pre-service teachers to reflect on how their experiences and values affect their relationships with students, parents, and colleagues and vice versa. A sense of immediacy refers to the necessity of addressing students’ greatest needs and assessing how well they are met. Affective and effective action arises from pre-service teachers’ convictions about who they are as educators and how they should teach. It serves “the whole individual and society writ large.” Suggestions for instilling these principles in pre-service teachers are described.

Some ecologists believe that the global environmental crisis has been caused by placing humanity at the top of the ecosystem. They have asked religious traditions to help develop new ethics that restore equilibrium to the relationship between humanity and nature. One way to do this is to examine traditional texts from an ecological perspective. With extensive quotations, Sung-Hae Kim demonstrates how Elizabeth Seton saw the link between humanity and nature and how she experienced God in nature. Kim writes that Elizabeth learned to see suffering and death as transformative and part of an “ecological balance,” which led to trust in God. According to Kim, “while recognizing the rhythm of time in nature, Elizabeth realized the importance of living in the present and learned to be content in all situations by acquiring the virtues of moderation and harmony.” Her spirituality is considered within the context of ideas from four philosophers of ecology, Arne Naess, Aldo Leopold, Murray Bookchin, and Anthony Weston.

Judith Metz recounts all the principal events of Elizabeth Seton’s life and how she reacted to them. Elizabeth encountered much suffering, and she did not always sense God’s presence. Nonetheless, she trusted in God throughout her life and believed that he would ultimately help her through her pain. She felt that her suffering would bring her closer to him because of all he had already endured for her. Metz explains how this trust developed, often using Elizabeth’s own words. Her most important familial and spiritual relationships are also described.

Elizabeth Seton was a teacher for almost her entire life. A major portion of her experience as a teacher came as she instructed her own children. The combination of roles as mother and teacher expanded as she opened St. Joseph’s Academy in Emmitsburg, where she acted as a mother to her students and was the religious mother of the Sisters of Charity. St. Joseph’s admitted poor and wealthy girls; although they were not formally admitted, free and enslaved black students also received some education there. The curricula and organization of the school are described. Long quotations from Elizabeth’s writings offer her thoughts on teaching and illustrate her relationships to those she taught.

Elizabeth Seton’s commonplace book of poetry, compiled between 1788 and 1801, is presented. According to Ellin Kelly, “the collection provide[s] valuable insights into young Elizabeth Bayley’s character in the years prior to and after her marriage to William McGee Seton” that are not found in other sources. They show her transition from teenager to wife and mother. Forty-eight selections from thirty-two poets are included, ranging from a few lines to complete poems. Aside from Shakespeare and Milton, almost all the other poets were prominent in Elizabeth’s time. Themes among the poems include nature, the human condition, virtue, romantic love, friendship, memories of youth, death, and immortality.

Judith Metz explores the importance of friendship in Elizabeth Seton’s life in general and specifically through four of her most intimate relationships. The ways in which Elizabeth nurtured her friendships are discussed. Julia Scott was a lifelong friend from Elizabeth’s youth. The two supported each other emotionally, and Julia gave Elizabeth significant financial assistance. There was much spiritual sharing between Elizabeth and Rebecca Seton, her sister-in-law, and they were devoted to prayer and service. Cecilia O’Conway helped Elizabeth establish the Sisters of Charity and became one of the first members of the community. They relied on each other during the community’s early struggles. Cecilia aided Elizabeth in becoming the leader she needed to be and helped her achieve greater holiness. Finally, Elizabeth and Simon Brute were spiritual directors to each other. Their mutual guidance is described.

Having published the collected writings of Elizabeth Seton, the Seton Writings Committee decided that correspondence to Elizabeth should be published as well. As an illustration of the fresh perspectives that could be gleaned from this publication, this article summarizes letters about the conflict over superiors for the Sisters of Charity. The article explains the circumstances surrounding the resignation of the first superior, William Dubourg, and the disagreements between Elizabeth and Dubourg’s successor, Jean-Baptiste David.

The life of Elizabeth Seton’s daughter Catherine is recounted. Catherine studied and taught at Emmitsburg, nursed her mother through her final illness, and traveled throughout the eastern United States as well as Europe. She knew many important people, especially members of the American Catholic hierarchy. As the first New York Sister of Mercy with a career that spanned forty-five years, she was vital to that community’s American establishment. She engaged in a wide variety of important work, especially extensive ministry in the prisons of New York. Bishop John Hughes said of her, “If ever [a] daughter rivaled the sanctity of such a mother as hers, she is the one.”

Using the Bible, Elizabeth Seton’s writings, and contemporary eucharistic theology, Mary Donovan examines what the eucharist meant to Elizabeth and how this impacts what it means for us. It was the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist and its power to make recipients part of his body that attracted Elizabeth to Catholicism and made the eucharist of central importance in her life. She recognized that it is the eucharist that unifies Christians in one body, which governs how they should treat each other. It also mandates that they continue Christ’s service on earth, becoming his body for that purpose. The liturgy’s relationship to the eucharist is discussed.

Betty Ann McNeil “considers examples of the primary strategies and resources that Vincentian leaders have used to empower others to commit themselves to mission and to communicate the founding charism across boundaries of time and cultures.” Her focus is on the contributions that women have made to the Vincentian culturescape. Daughters of Charity and Sisters of Charity who have had major roles in passing the charism down through their communities are profiled. McNeil writes that one way the charism is successfully handed on is through stories of individuals who lived it. In particular, Elizabeth Seton’s introduction of the charism to the United States is recounted. Core values of the Daughters of Charity are described. Values of the Vincentian mission—compassion, secularity, and collaboration—are discussed. Attention is paid to Vincent de Paul as leader and formator and to his relationships with women.

In a time when there is an increasing gap between appearances and reality, the Vincentian virtue of simplicity—having one’s inner values and motivations match one’s outer behavior—is ever more essential. Vincent de Paul exemplified simplicity. He said it was a virtue of God and Jesus and that it was impossible to serve poor persons effectively without it. Elizabeth Seton also sought and exhibited a genuine presence in her relationships, both in her personal life and with those she served. As both saints demonstrated, simplicity is necessary for leadership. Authority is derived from faith that a leader truly is the person he or she professes to be.

Elizabeth Seton’s devotion to the Bible is explored using her writings from different times in her life. She “used biblical language to express her own thoughts” and made direct references to the Bible. Catechisms and methods she used at the Emmitsburg school, her markings in her own Bibles, and her copies of biblical commentaries are examined, along with the documents Antonio Filicchi and Henry Hobart prepared for her as she weighed her conversion to Catholicism. Joan Cook describes how the Bible was Elizabeth’s “friend, the object of her study, and her anchor.”

Elizabeth fulfilled many roles during her life: daughter and stepchild, wife, widow, convert, mother, and foundress. To each she brought her understanding of her baptismal covenant with God. This article explores each of Elizabeth’s roles, and how the combination of relationships and events led her to see God in others and understand God’s will for her life. This understanding of God that develops through life stages and events is a hallmark of Incarnational Spirituality. The culture that Elizabeth was born into, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s influence on her ideas about education, and early life in the community of the Sisters of Charity are also discussed.

Jean Flannelly asserts that Elizabeth Seton was a mystic, although she probably would not have seen herself that way. Elizabeth’s worldview differed from ours, but she can still serve as a model for us. She was “fascinated with God” and found his presence in the Church, especially in the eucharist, in her suffering, and in people. To “gain deeper insight into her words, admonitions, and interiority,” Flanelly examines the influence of the Bible, The Imitation of Christ, the liturgy, and the writings of Francis de Sales on Elizabeth’s “religious imagination.” Flannelly also explores what Elizabeth might have us do to become closer to God. She would particularly want us to see the divine in ordinary life. The contemporary theological understanding of mysticism and its application to Elizabeth are explained.

The response of the Vincentian and Charity Families to the attacks of 9/11 is chronicled, using people’s own words wherever possible. On the day itself and during the aftermath, Sisters of Charity and Vincentians prayed with and counseled grieving people, first responders, and rescue workers. Personnel from Saint Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center were among the earliest to arrive at Ground Zero, and the Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers treated over one thousand victims. Among other things, Sisters of Charity served as New York Police Department chaplains, answered calls to hospital information lines, and worked at a DNA collection site and a debris examination site. Daughters of Charity oversaw Catholic Charities’ relief efforts for affected families. The Vincentian Family held vigils, rallies, and interfaith services. In addition, “colleges and universities founded by the Sisters of Charity and the Vincentians . . . sponsored lectures and programs to help students explore theological, political, historical, and psychological issues raised by 9/11.” These are just some of many ways in which the Vincentian and Charity Families served after the tragedy. Theological reflections are included.

Many of the same values motivated the missions of Louise de Marillac and Elizabeth Seton. Both had a deep respect for human dignity and saw Jesus in the people they served. They were attuned to God’s presence in their lives and carried out his will as they discerned it. They relied on providence and were daughters of the Church, focusing on the events of the liturgical year and their experience of God in the eucharist. Their own suffering made them acutely aware of the paschal mystery, and they encouraged others to participate in it. Their “hunger for the Word of God,” their devotion to Mary, and their view of eternity are also discussed in this article.

The similarities in the lives, spirituality, and mission of Elizabeth Seton and Louise de Marillac are examined. Both lost their mothers early in life, and both were wives, mothers, and widows. They had nursed terminally ill husbands and were single parents before they founded their communities. These life experiences had a significant impact on their service. Similar experiences led to their personal conversion. Elizabeth’s knowledge of Louise and the influence of the Rules and vows of the Daughters of Charity on the Sisters of Charity are described. The mission of both communities and the virtues that the foundresses instilled in their followers are discussed.

Previous installments of this list may be found in volumes 18 and 19. This part continues documenting the writings of Elizabeth Seton contained in the archives of Saint Joseph Provincial House. Letters to Elizabeth’s son William are full of family news and concern about his career. Elizabeth writes to her daughters Anna Marie (Annina), Rebecca, and Catherine. In one letter to Anna Marie, Elizabeth refers to her teenage copy book which she is thinking of expanding for her children. The letters to Rebecca and Catherine are mostly addressed to them as young children. Incidental notes to her husband and letters to her father are included. There are also letters to the Filicchis, including a journal kept for Amabilia recounting Catholicism’s attraction for Elizabeth and the struggles surrounding her conversion. Aspects of her spirituality are evident in her correspondence with Simon Brute.

Parallels among Elizabeth Seton’s spirituality and Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are explored. A central part of Elizabeth’s spirituality was her concept of “the grace of the moment,” the discernment of God’s will in all situations. This is compared with the Confucian Timely Mean, which guides people’s responses to all occasions and which allows people to fulfill the Mandate of Heaven in daily life and all human relationships. For Elizabeth, eternity began in the present because it was a way of seeing life with God’s vision. This is similar to the Taoist way of viewing everything in the light of Heaven. Elizabeth was intimately familiar with suffering and accepted what it had to teach her; her outlook relates well to the Buddhist goal of seeing reality as it is. Questions for reflections are provided.

Previous installments of this list may be found in both issues of volume 18 and the first issue of this volume. This part continues documenting the writings of Elizabeth Seton contained in the archives of Saint Joseph Provincial House. There are letters to her friend Catherine Dupleix, mostly about Elizabeth’s family. There are also letters to various family members, especially Rebecca and Cecilia Seton. Those to Rebecca describe the Setons’ quarantine in Italy and Elizabeth’s growing interest in Catholicism. Those to Cecilia are filled with spiritual thoughts and advice.

Betty Ann McNeil surveys the stories of major figures in the Vincentian Family, including Catherine Laboure, Rosalie Rendu, Frederic Ozanam, Elizabeth Seton, and modern superiors and superioresses general. She traces the workings of providence in their lives and in their responses to events, as well as its role in the overall history of the Vincentian Family. In doing so, she “highlight[s] the mission of charity century by century” and “reflect[s] on the role of zeal, collaboration, and servant leadership for ministry today.” Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac’s understanding of providence is discussed, as is God’s call to ministry to Vincentian Family members. Attention is given to the spread of the Vincentian charism in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

Previous installments of this list may be found in both issues of volume 18. This part continues documenting the writings of Elizabeth Seton contained in the archives of Saint Joseph Provincial House. All the writings annotated here are letters to Elizabeth’s friends, especially her close friends Julia Scott and Eliza Sadler. Elizabeth mostly writes about her family and inquires extensively after her friends and their children. Some letters to Scott are about William Seton’s family and business troubles and his illness. Others concern her life immediately after his death. She writes about her establishment in Baltimore and Emmitsburg. Letters to both friends span the period from the late 1790s to about 1820 and provide a detailed portrait of these lifelong friendships.

Vie Thorgren identifies three “gifts of relationship” in Elizabeth Seton’s life that empowered her and others around her. She explains how these are relevant to us and how they are “helpful for an understanding of charity that embraces justice.” First, Thorgren explores Elizabeth’s relationship with her father, and with God by extension, and how both gave her the first gift, “the authority of the Father’s Daughter.” In Jungian psychology, the Father’s Daughter is a woman who is practical, adaptable, and capable of gaining others’ trust. As a Father’s Daughter, Elizabeth knew the difference between authority and control. Authority is legitimate because it is exercised within the context of a relationship. Control is simply domination. Thorgren says the second gift was Elizabeth’s capacity to “midwif[e] the laboring Spirit”—she was able to make death a “blessed time” for the dying because she was unafraid of it. Similarly, Thorgren concludes, we must be unafraid of the death of old ways of life as fairer ones are created. The third gift, “real presence,” enduring love without barriers, is something we must demonstrate to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

Sung-Hae Kim conducted a survey among Korean Sisters of Charity to discover their understanding of the charism of charity and whether they thought there was a cultural gap between it and East Asian culture. A large percentage of the younger ones felt there was a gap, and in general the understanding of the charism was abstract. Kim discusses the virtues of simplicity, humility and charity found in Vincent de Paul’s conferences. She also describes how these virtues were perceived and lived out by Elizabeth Seton. The article concludes with an exploration of the Taoist counterparts to the Vincentian virtues. These are compassion, frugality, and not daring to take the lead in the world. The Taoist and Vincentian virtues complement each other, and as such, can strengthen the charism of charity.

At the time this article was written, the Sisters of Charity Federation was planning to publish all of Elizabeth Seton’s writings, which were held in fifteen repositories throughout the United States and Canada. In preparation for this, annotated lists of the contents of each repository were to appear in Vincentian Heritage. This first one documents all the archives of the Sisters of Charity and the Daughters of Charity except Saint Joseph Provincial House in Emmitsburg. Most of the items in the list are letters from Elizabeth to her family, especially her children, and to Antonio Filicchi and his family. Many of those to Filicchi are about her struggle to convert and the aftermath of that decision. Other documents include the Leghorn journal, which Elizabeth kept from her arrival in Leghorn, Italy, until her husband’s death; spiritual reflections on various subjects; and religious books, including Elizabeth’s copy of The Following of Christ with marginal notes.

This article does not address specific decisions and methods of decision making in Elizabeth Seton’s life and in the life of the community she founded. Rather, it identifies five qualities of Elizabeth’s formation and shows how they influenced her life and thought. These qualities are “a contemplative spirit, a discerning heart, a compassionate presence, faithful service, and a courageous vision.” Elizabeth was contemplative from an early age, which strengthened her and helped her sense God’s presence and love. She “totally entrusted herself to God” and incorporated prayer and counsel into her discernment, using them to counter or at least interpret her strong emotional responses. The development and application of her compassion is described. Compassion helped the Sisters of Charity make decisions because it drew them together as a community. The questions Elizabeth posed to determine whether service was faithful are included. Examples of her vision are given.

Discernment involves finding the ways in which God speaks to us. God spoke to Elizabeth Seton in nature, daily events, and prayer. She constantly sought God’s will and discovered it using what we now delineate as male and female ways of knowing. This article pays particular attention to her discernment as she made the decision to become Catholic. It also offers guidelines for individual and group discernment.

Mary Brink employs two definitions of “church.” One refers to the Catholic Church. The other definition is “the community of believers who believe in God revealed in Jesus and follow Jesus in helping to spread the reign of God.” A portrait of the American church to which Elizabeth Seton belonged is given and her relationship with it is explained. However, the article’s final emphasis is that the Sisters of Charity should use Elizabeth’s relationship with her Church in their own relationship with the modern Church. Elizabeth was deeply involved in the concerns of her day, as the Sisters must be in theirs. Besides advocating for justice and for the poor, they must work with the Church and to bring about its recognition of women as “full partners.”

Elizabeth Seton’s last words were “Be children of the Church.” Josephine Burns explores what she meant, asking “What was the Church for her? What was her understanding of the way in which God was present in the Church and its ministers?” A sketch of the Church during Elizabeth’s time is provided, but she never commented on its organization or the issues that it faced. Her faith was personal, meaning that it was based on her own experience of God and on the God she found in others. She experienced the Church through the sacraments and her relationships with the clergy, especially Bishop John Carroll. A special kind of obedience was the hallmark of her faith. It required her to highlight “the truth as she saw it” but also to accept her superiors’ decisions as reflecting God’s will. Burns explains how we can apply Elizabeth’s concept of the Church and obedience to our own faith today.

Unlike many saints who saw human relationships as distractions from spiritual life, Elizabeth Seton serves as a model for pursuing and sustaining intimate relationships of all kinds. Her life shows us that “the capacity for loving intimacy, with both other people and with God, is in itself a spiritual path.” For her, relationships with family and friends were intertwined with her relationship with God. Catholicism’s belief in the Real Presence was particularly attractive to her. As she lost various human presences in her life, she found the divine presence, the basis of her faith, and she always sought to be closer to it. At the same time, she “deepened her capacity for human affection as she plunged deeper into intimacy with God.” Each led her to a greater understanding of the other. Particular attention is paid to the maternal aspect of love that she demonstrated toward all those she cared for.

This list continues from volume 18, issue 1 and includes Elizabeth Seton materials from all non-Sister/Daughter of Charity repositories. It begins the listing for Saint Joseph’s Provincial House, which holds the largest collection of Elizabeth’s writings. The archives from the Archdiocese of Baltimore contain letters from her to Bishop/Archbishop Carroll, including those from when William Dubourg forbade the Sisters of Charity’s correspondence with Pierre Babade, and those that explain her difficulties with John David. One describes her concerns about the impact the Rules of the Daughters of Charity will have on her community. Another is about her worries with regard to reconciling the Constitutions with her obligations to her children. Other letters to Antonio Filicchi are about her spiritual struggles over her conversion. At least three different repositories have letters to the Harpers about their children. Other letters in other archives are written to and about Elizabeth’s own children and other family. Saint Joseph’s Provincial House has letters from her to her superiors and many spiritual reflections and materials. It also has the 1815 journal she kept for Simon Brute detailing life among the early Sisters of Charity.

Betty Ann McNeil imagines Elizabeth Seton speaking about her mission of education. Seton’s own words are combined with adaptations of her writings. The article recounts her call to mission and the difficulties she faced in New York, her mission in Maryland, and the challenges inherent in the founding of the Sisters of Charity and of Saint Joseph’s Academy in Emmitsburg. The educational model and the teaching methods used at Saint Joseph’s are discussed, and questions for reflection are offered to today’s educators. The Sisters’ works outside Emmitsburg are also mentioned.

Elizabeth Seton made her suffering into hope. She believed in God even when she could not sense his presence and believed that Jesus’s suffering was reflected in her own. With the latter realization, “her life became the channel for God’s life.” She drew strength from those she loved and particularly from the communion of faith that unites Christians. Hope was not just an emotion she felt; it was a virtue that she cultivated and chose to practice by placing herself in God’s hands. She kept the pain in her life in perspective with, as she put it, the “comparison of time and Eternity.” Finally, Elizabeth believed in the power of suffering to transform her.

This commentary on Elizabeth Seton’s spirituality is also Anne Harvey’s personal reflection on what that spirituality has to teach her, especially with regard to two of her own experiences. The reader is invited to make a similar reflection. Elizabeth believed that God was present and working his will in every event and relationship. He also worked his will in her responses to events, and he offered eternal life through these events, relationships, and responses. She viewed eternity as “fullness of life and communion with God.” Three elements were essential to her spirituality: daily prayer, the writing of letters or journals, and her love of the Eucharist. Harvey also notes specifically feminine aspects of Elizabeth’s spirituality.

Elizabeth Seton’s response to suffering is examined to help us respond to suffering in our own lives. There were three “clusters of sufferings” in her life, which correspond to the three periods of her life, childhood and adolescence, marriage and young womanhood, and mature womanhood. Each cluster of sufferings helped prepare her for the challenges of the next phase of her life. Three perspectives are used to interpret Elizabeth’s experience: human wisdom (in the form of Erik Erikson’s psycho-social theory of human development), Scripture (particularly “Israel’s journey of gift and conversion”), and tradition (the theology of the Dark Night in John of the Cross).

Mary Donovan examines Elizabeth Seton’s experience as a widow and as a mother of a teen daughter and explores the impact of two of Elizabeth’s closest relationships. In these years, the most important relationships in Elizabeth’s life were with her husband’s friend Antonio Filicchi, who played a great role in her conversion, and her daughter Anna. After her husband’s death, Elizabeth had to construct a new identity for herself, and the process is best documented in her correspondence with Filicchi. The two struggled with affection for each other, but ultimately she looked on him as a spiritual friend and he acted as her benefactor. Elizabeth found it difficult to believe she could love her children deeply without losing God’s love but eventually reconciled the two. With time, she learned to put Anna’s needs ahead of her own and respected Anna’s initial reluctance to join the Sisters of Charity. Anna’s death led Elizabeth to greater trust in God.

Marilyn Thei’s highly detailed article examines Elizabeth Seton “within the context of her world, amidst life in late eighteenth-century New York City as experienced by women of her class, race, and age.” Thei uses the writing of Elizabeth and her peers as well as sources of feminist scholarship to do this. Elizabeth’s life is often contrasted with lives of women from other races and classes. The topics covered include the extent of Elizabeth’s engagement with the world of fashion and entertainment, the nature of her relationships with her husband and with her dearest friend, her experience of motherhood, her role as mistress of a household, her charitable activity, the scope of the Seton family’s financial crisis, and the impact of the decision to travel to Italy.

This article outlines Elizabeth Seton’s relationships with her family and profiles three of her close friends, Julia Scott, Eliza Sadler, and Catherine Dupleix. It describes the ways in which each friend supported Elizabeth and how she was devoted to them. The article gives great detail about her spiritual advisors Filippo Filicchi and John Henry Hobart. Both men gave her books about their respective faiths and composed manuscripts about them. Filicchi’s manuscript explained Catholicism and why he believed the Catholic Church was the one true church. Hobart’s manuscript was a rebuttal to Filicchi’s.

Elizabeth Seton did not have our contemporary understanding of spirituality and mission. Nonetheless, her writings and a consideration of her life in general offer a sense of her perspective on them. Gertrude Foley stresses that “spirituality is holistic, an integrating dynamic in one’s life” that motivates mission or action. Foley further defines mission as a life that is “a channel . . . of God’s love.” By identifying five obstacles to mission and learning how Elizabeth overcame them, we discover how she can guide us. The five obstacles are: being self-centered, being pious without putting faith in action, failing to recognize that it is not we but God who accomplishes all good, seeing activity and spirituality as being mutually exclusive, and believing that the concerns of daily life are opposed to a commitment to mission. Elizabeth’s spirituality enabled her to spread God’s love. She focused on God’s will and recognized that, as Foley puts it, “a spirituality for mission is a spirituality developed in mission.” Finally, Elizabeth saw opportunities to spread God’s love all aspects of her life and in all of her commitments.

Margaret Kelly summarizes the many categories of important relationships in Elizabeth Seton’s life from 1809 to 1821 and how she viewed relationships in general. During this period, Elizabeth was fulfilling two main roles: she was a parent and a foundress. John Carroll, Simon Gabriel Brute, and Antonio Filicchi helped her in these roles, and Kelly uses them as a “prism” for understanding Elizabeth’s other relationships. In her correspondence with Carroll, we see Elizabeth’s simplicity and determination as well as specific problems she faced while founding the Sisters of Charity. She shows many facets to Brute, her guide and disciple: “her playfulness, here spiritual maturity, and her personal suffering.” Filicchi was a source of stability for her. He saw her through the major events of her life after her husband’s death and supported the Setons and the Sisters in many ways. Kelly explains how these relationships were reciprocal.

The first part of this article gives the political, social, economic, and religious context of the world in which Elizabeth Seton lived. The second part describes the establishment and work of the Sisters of Charity. Education for all was important to early Americans, largely because everyone was supposed to read the Bible. Women had more agency than their European counterparts, although their influence was still mostly confined to the home. They were charged with instilling morality in children, and through them, in society in general. This was reflected in the curriculum of Elizabeth Seton’s school, Saint Joseph’s Academy. The outlook and influence of John Carroll, the United States’ first bishop whose diocese comprised the entire country, is discussed. He was a friend of Elizabeth’s and was among those who supported the opening of Saint Joseph’s. Enlightenment ideals, especially openness, tolerance, and optimism about human nature, were embodied in the attitudes and work of the Sisters of Charity.

This inventory of the Province of the West’s archives reflects its holdings at the end of 1988, with some notable additions. Highlights include materials on the Congregation’s government, including minutes, working papers, and other documents for general assemblies; records for each American province (with the greatest emphasis on the Province of the West), reflecting the Congregation’s historical growth in the United States; published works on the Daughters of Charity; various items on the Ladies of Charity and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society; publications (amounting to hundreds of titles) on Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Catherine Laboure, and Elizabeth Ann Seton; and various audio-visual materials.