On Sept. 14, 1975, Pope Paul VI solemnly declared \u201cbefore the holy Catholic Church, before our other Christian brethren in the world, before the entire American people, and before all humanity,\u201d that \u201cElizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is a Saint!\u201d<\/p>\n
It takes one to know one. On Oct. 14, 2018, Pope Francis canonized Pope Paul VI who, he said, devoted \u201chis whole life to the \u2018sacred, solemn and grave task of continuing in history and extending on earth the mission of Christ.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
On May 29, we celebrate all the ways Paul extended the mission of Christ: The Church\u2019s social teaching, the New Evangelization, ecumenism, and the embrace of popular Catholic piety. St. Paul VI celebrated these hallmarks in the life of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, too.<\/p>\n
Together, these are summed up in the Universal Call to Holiness, a major message of the Second Vatican Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday he still urges us, together with the Council whose wise helmsman he was,\u201d said Pope Francis, \u201cto live our common vocation: the universal call to holiness. Not to half measures, but to holiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
The universal call to holiness means doing God\u2019s will in one\u2019s personal devotion, but also in shaping a society according to His will. Two related topics for St. Paul VI were the social teaching of the Church and the New Evangelization, which was a term he coined.<\/p>\n
Paul VI\u2019s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio <\/i>(The Progress of Peoples) deeply shaped Pope Francis\u2019s thinking. In it, Paul VI wrote, \u201cLet each one examine his conscience, a conscience that conveys a new message for our times. Is he prepared to support out of his own pocket works and undertakings organized in favor of the most destitute? Is he ready to pay higher taxes so that the public authorities can intensify their efforts in favor of development? Is he ready to pay a higher price for imported goods so that the producer may be more justly rewarded?\u201d<\/p>\n
These are strong words, but for Paul VI holiness had to go far beyond social teaching. In his 1975 encyclical Evangelii nuntiandi<\/i>, he wrote simply: \u201cModern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Combine these two ideas and you get St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. She also saw the link between service to the poor and the call to holiness. \u201cThe nearer a soul is truly united to God, the more its sensibilities are increased to every being of his Creation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
St. Paul VI praised Elizabeth\u2019s personal holiness and the works she founded, \u201cThe apostolate of helping the poor and the running of parochial schools in America had this humble, poor, courageous and glorious beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another hallmark of St. Paul VI\u2019s pontificate was ecumenism.<\/p>\n
On the night before he died, Jesus prayed<\/a> to the Father that Christians \u201cmay be one as we are one.\u201d That divisions exist in the body of Christ, the Church, are a terrible wound that gives the world a divided witness.<\/p>\n St. Paul VI made great efforts to reconcile the Church with her \u201cseparated brothers and sisters,\u201d as he called Protestant Christians. He held a historic first meeting with the Pope and the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, telling Michael Ramsey, \u201cwe are happy to open our door and our heart to you.\u201d<\/p>\n Open doors and hearts are what attracted Elizabeth Ann Seton into the Church when she was Episcopalian. She saw the reasonability of the faith, but it was the welcome of the Filicchi family, whom she visited in Italy when she was seeking healing for her husband, that won her over.<\/p>\n She opened the doors of her life and attracted many family members in. She once related how a Protestant brother-in-law asked her, \u201cSister Seton they say you go to the Catholic church. What is the difference?\u201d<\/p>\n She described her answer in the third person: \u201c\u2019It is the first church my brother the old church the Apostles begun,\u2019 answered the poor trembling Betsy Seton dreading always to be pushed on a subject she could only feel, but never express to these cool reasoners.\u201d<\/p>\n But she retained her respect for the Protestants she belonged to in her youth, and the respect was returned at her canonization.<\/p>\n As Pope VI said: \u201cIt is a motive of hope and a presage of ever better ecumenical relations to note the presence at this ceremony of distinguished Episcopalian dignitaries, to whom \u2014 interpreting as it were the heartfelt sentiments of the new Saint \u2014 we extend our greeting of devotion and good wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n But just as important as ecumenism to St. Paul VI was the sensum fidelium<\/i> of the people of God \u2014 the sense of the faithful, particularly as regards popular piety.<\/p>\n Pope Paul VI was a great practitioner of the traditional forms of Catholic piety, especially respect for the Virgin Mary and the Eucharist.<\/p>\n His travels to six continents made him the first \u201cPilgrim Pope,\u201d and his visits followed his interests. He visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima on the 50th anniversaries of the apparitions there, and he traveled to Bombay, India, and Bogat\u00e1, Columbia, for their Eucharistic Congresses.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the moment when we were called to the See of Peter, we have constantly striven to enhance devotion to the Blessed Virgin,\u201d he wrote in 1974\u2019s Marialis cultus <\/i>(Marian devotion).<\/i> The Church\u2019s zeal for Mary \u201c<\/i>is an indication of the Church\u2019s genuine piety. This devotion fits \u2026 into the only worship that is rightly called \u2018Christian,\u2019 because it takes its origin and effectiveness from Christ, finds its complete expression in Christ, and leads through Christ in the Spirit to the Father.\u201d<\/p>\n In his 1965 encyclical Mysterium Fidei <\/i>(The Mystery of the Faith) he wrote, \u201cIf the sacred liturgy holds first place in the life of the Church, then the Eucharistic Mystery stands at the heart and center of the liturgy, since it is the font of life that cleanses us and strengthens us to live not for ourselves but for God and to be united to each other by the closest ties of love.\u201d<\/p>\n We think of Mary and the Eucharist as what makes Catholics Catholics. Paul VI thought of them as what makes Catholics Christians.<\/p>\n So did St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Eucharist were closely tied together for her. She called Mary Jesus\u2019s \u201ctabernacle\u201d and described what happened when a Eucharistic procession passed her house. \u201cI fell on my knees without thinking when the Blessed Sacrament passed by and cried in an agony to God to bless me if he was there.\u201d She said she turned to a prayer book in the Filicchis\u2019 house and opened to the Memorare. \u201cI said it to her with such a certainty that God would surely refuse nothing to his Mother.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, both St. Paul VI and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton are there with the Blessed Mother, praying that we might join them in heaven by uniting ourselves with the Eucharistic Lord.<\/p>\n Image: Paul VI by Fotografia Felici, 1969, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n TOM HOOPES<\/strong>, autor m\u00e1s reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitri\u00f3n de La extraordinaria Stor<\/a>y podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco<\/a> ya est\u00e1 disponible en Audible<\/a>. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comit\u00e9 de Medios y Arbitrios de la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pas\u00f3 10 a\u00f1os como editor del peri\u00f3dico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.<\/em><\/p>\n