Cardinal O'Connor's Homily

Saint of New York

Cardinal comments on Elizabeth Ann Seton's remarkable devotion to Eucharist

This is the text of Cardinal O'Connor's homily at Sunday Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral Feb. 6.

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Cardinal comments on Elizabeth Ann Seton's remarkable devotion to Eucharist

This is the text of Cardinal O'Connor's homily at Sunday Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral Feb. 6.

Permit me to speak of Elizabeth Ann Seton who died in 1821 and was ultimately canonized as a saint. She lived for many years here in New York. Let me read this very, very brief passage descriptive of her life.

"She was a daughter, a debutante, wife, mother, widow, convert, a grieving parent and the founder of the first congregation of women religious in America, the Sisters of Charity.

"Canonized in Rome in 1975, she brought honor and distinction to the city of her birth [New York]."

Elizabeth Ann Seton was a woman who had been born into wealth and fame and was very well known. Ultimately, she became a Catholic and was rejected. Very few of those who had once thought of her as a woman of great importance, with whom they wanted to associate, would have anything to do with her because she had become a Catholic. She became very, very poor. She had five children. Ultimately she went down to Emmitsburg, Md., where she established schools and brought about truly the most wondrous educational system that has perdured and will perdure undoubtedly for years to come. This is what my beloved predecessor Cardinal Cooke had to say of Elizabeth Ann Seton:

"In Elizabeth Ann Seton we have a saint for our times;

"In Elizabeth Ann Seton we have a woman of faith for a time of doubt and uncertainty;

"In Elizabeth Ann Seton we have a woman of love for a time of coldness and division;

"In Elizabeth Ann Seton we have a woman of hope for a time of crisis and discouragement;

"Thanks be to God for this saintly daughter of New York, for this valiant woman of God's Church!"

Simple as was always befitting Cardinal Cooke but so lovely and so filled with the essence of what Elizabeth Ann Seton was. As I said, I speak of her now because so much of December and January (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's feast day is Jan. 4 ) were taken up with so many other things. Elizabeth Ann Seton was a mother of five children. These children often suffered because of her poverty. She herself suffered because of that poverty. She took those children finally to Emmitsburg in large measure because she had been rejected here in New York. So often this is the way in which Almighty God works.

With us today is Bishop McCormack, director of the Propagation of the Faith. It is his responsibility to travel the United States to do everything that he can to try to spread the faith. This is the kind of thing that Elizabeth Ann Seton did. When she went to Maryland and began her work of schooling, that kind of activity was virtually unknown. What she did bordered virtually on the miraculous. But it was not simply that she taught. It was not simply even that she suffered, powerful as that suffering was. She went beyond this.

Elizabeth Ann Seton was one of those in the earlier days of the Church here in New York who discovered a secret that not everyone discovered. I wish to read a very simple and brief excerpt from her words: "Take this from me--though now the happiest of poor and banished sinners." She is speaking, of course, of the fact that she had been banished from those who once considered her so terribly important because of her wealth and her role in society. She now speaks of herself as the happiest of poor and banished sinners. But then she says,

"[T]hen most, most wretched desolate--what would be my refuge--Jesus is everywhere, in the very air I breathe. Yes, everywhere--but in his sacrament of the altar as present actually and really as my soul within my body in his sacrifice daily offered, as really as once offered on the cross--merciful Savior, can there be any comparison to his blessedness--could any other plan satisfy offended Justice--form an acceptable oblation to your eternal Father, or reconcile us to yourself?"

Elizabeth Ann Seton is a woman who had come to learn above all else, the sacredness, the meaningfulness of the Eucharist. Not too many spoke of the Eucharist in those days as did she, this woman who had so many problems. But for her the Eucharist became the heart of our faith, the heart of her life. Once she discovered that, once that mystery flooded through her being, then it would appear that everything else became purely secondary.

All of us here, I am sure, have had opportunity to read about, to pray about the Eucharist and, of course, the greater number of us here have received the Eucharist time after time. But here Elizabeth Ann Seton was all those years ago, in a day in which it was not nearly so common, recognizing the sacredness of the Eucharist, recognizing that everything else was secondary in comparison.

Can there be anything comparable to that which is offered to us in this Holy Sacrifice? The greater number of us here, very shortly now, will be offered the opportunity to receive the living Body and Blood of Christ. How will we receive? Is it possible that you and I may receive prosaically, so that it will merely happen that we will come up in a line? Will we reflect for a moment perhaps? Will we be disconcerted by noises around us, by other people waiting to receive? Or is it possible that we will be able to plunge ourselves, if for but a moment, totally and entirely into the reality of Christ present in the Eucharist?

Elizabeth Ann Seton did not simply speak of the presence of Christ. She spoke of the way in which she was caught up in it, the way it totally embraced her, in which she recognized the reality, the totality of the Son of God, of Christ the Lord. Is it conceivable that for but a few moments in this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass some of us here may experience something we have never experienced before? Is it possible that today we will recognize, we will actually take part in the presence of Christ the Lord as perhaps never before in our lives? If so, is it possible that our lives will be changed as never, never before? We will be new people with new graces for ourselves and to share with one another, because of the tender mercies of Christ in the Eucharist.

Cardinal O'Connor's Homily, Cardinal O'Connor