{"id":39275,"date":"2022-12-31T00:01:51","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T05:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/?p=39275"},"modified":"2022-12-31T08:04:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T13:04:12","slug":"deja-que-santa-elizabeth-ann-seton-sea-tu-companera-en-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/es\/let-saint-elizabeth-ann-seton-be-your-companion-in-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Deje que Santa Isabel Ana Seton sea su compa\u00f1era este a\u00f1o"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a new year begins, we know it\u2019s a good practice to take stock of the successes and failures of the previous twelve months and resolve to do better, but it\u2019s also a good time to examine what sort of thinking we have engaged in \u2013 whether it\u2019s been unproductive and negative \u201cstinking thinking,\u201d or reality-grounded yet determinedly positive. Our thinking, after all, deeply impacts the way we move about in life, for better or worse, \u201cin all we have done, in all we have failed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a good time to consider who we have been keeping company with, both physically, mentally, and spiritually \u2013 and whether those associations have been beneficial or harmful to us, and which ones we should try to pursue more fully or engage with less frequently, if at all.<\/p>\n

We might notice that some of our acquaintances have drawn us into easy negative habits (like gossip, or cynicism), while others have encouraged us toward the more difficult habits of charity. Perhaps some people we follow on social media platforms have been a reliable source of inspiration, while others seem to bring out the worst in us. If self-improvement is our goal, we would do well to give less of our time and attention to the former, and more to the latter.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t necessarily mean \u201cgiving up\u201d on those who may sometimes lead us astray; it means giving more time and attention to the positive influencers, and using what they can bring us to expand our own spiritual and personal growth, to the point where we may become good, inspiring influences on others \u2013 even to those we\u2019ve had to pull back from in order to work on ourselves.<\/p>\n

In light of all this, it seems especially fortuitous that the feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton occurs on January 4, when we are still pondering these things, and seeking out modes of self-improvement, because so many aspects of her life are so readily identifiable with our own, and a friend we can identify with is one we will more willingly learn from and emulate.<\/p>\n

How relatable is St. Elizabeth Ann to our lives and our times? Well, she\u2019s a woman whose life pitched her from wealth to poverty, from a deliriously happy marriage to young widowhood. From a world full of social connections \u2014 she would have been a huge draw on Facebook and Twitter \u2014 to a social reject.\u00a0As a child she lived uneasily in a troubled \u201cblended family\u201d before such things were common and she suffered there enough to contemplate overdosing on an opiate (laudanum) to escape.<\/p>\n

Before Elizabeth became the spiritual mother of many, she was a single parent raising five children and scrambling to find respectable work to support them. She raised her children with great joy but grieved for the two young ones she had to bury.<\/p>\n

Baptized into the Anglican tradition, Elizabeth\u2019s relationship with God was forged in her youth, her prayers informed by Scripture and her instinct for lectio divina<\/em>. Her encounters with the Word created a hunger for the Word Made Flesh, and fervor for the Real Presence brought her into full communion with the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

Her habit of seeing the hand of Providence in all things made the subsequent rejection by her family seem a bearable turn within the trustworthy plans of God. \u201cIf [something] succeeds, I bless God, if it does not succeed \u2026I bless God, because then it will be right that things should not succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

On top of all of that, St. Elizabeth Ann was an educational innovator who, through the founding of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph in 1808, deeply influenced Catholic elementary education in America at a time when Catholics were not always looked upon with kindness. Her religious community, founded upon the spiritual teachings of Sts. Vincent de Paul and Louis de Marillac, created schools, colleges, hospitals, and orphanages, always giving preference to the poor and disadvantaged. Her life and her work brought endless obstacles but Mother Seton\u2019s intimacy with Providence gave her the spiritual strength to overcome them. \u201cBut my God knows best,\u201d she would say.<\/p>\n

This January, most of us are going to resolve to do something along these lines:<\/p>\n