{"id":58312,"date":"2025-10-15T00:05:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/?p=58312"},"modified":"2025-10-15T00:37:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T04:37:38","slug":"finding-interior-peace-with-st-teresa-of-avila-and-mother-seton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setonshrine.org\/es\/finding-interior-peace-with-st-teresa-of-avila-and-mother-seton\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Interior Peace with St. Teresa of Avila and Mother Seton"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s as much of a plea as it is a command: \u201cDo not be afraid any longer, little flock,\u201d Christ says, \u201cFor the Father is pleased to give you the kingdom of heaven!\u201d (Luke 12:32) Since the Incarnation, there\u2019s no good reason to be afraid. We are beloved, and we can be at peace.<\/p>\n

This exhortation to leave behind our fear follows us through the Gospels. St. Paul, from prison, reiterates the same call: \u201cDo not be anxious about anything,\u201d and \u201clet \u201cthe peace of God, which transcends all understanding guard our hearts\u2026\u201d (Philippians 4:6-7).<\/p>\n

All of us long for the peace St. Paul describes, but longing for it and living it are two different things. It\u2019s a struggle that was as familiar to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton as it is to us.<\/p>\n

When her daughter Anna Maria died at just sixteen years old, Elizabeth felt no peace at all. It\u2019s not that she was angry with God. She wrote of her absolute refusal to, \u201cby a free act of the mind, to regret his Will,\u201d but her emotions didn\u2019t follow that heroic act of will. Instead, she fell into a three month fog of grief and depression so deep that she wrote, \u201cMy head was so disordered that unless for the daily duties always before me, I did not know much what I did or what I left undone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elizabeth couldn\u2019t shake off her grief. She was helpless against the sheer sorrow of it all, even to the point of being plagued by worries about the state of her daughter\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth had translated some of the works of St. Teresa of Avila. She probably knew one of St. Teresa\u2019s most famous works, a poem:<\/p>\n

Let nothing disturb you,
\nLet nothing frighten you,
\nAll things pass away:
\nGod never changes.
\nPatience obtains all things.
\nHe who has God
\nFinds he lacks nothing;
\nGod alone suffices.<\/p>\n

Let nothing disturb you and let nothing frighten you? That\u2019s a wonderful goal, but how do we get there?<\/p>\n

Elizabeth was floundering, trying her best to trust God, trying her hardest to feel with her heart the peace that reflected her firm belief, that \u201cGod alone suffices.\u201d<\/p>\n

She tried as desperately as any of us would and for a while she did exactly what many of us would do \u2014 she tried to fake it.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth\u2019s older sister Mary traveled to Maryland to comfort her, knowing that nobody can be strong all the time, and she left amazed. Her little sister seemed so cheerful!<\/p>\n

Elizabeth hadn\u2019t wanted anyone to see her as anything but peaceful, and so she poured all her inner resources into making sure that she presented herself to the world that way. But for all her efforts, the feeling of peace did not come.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t we tend to think that peace is an emotion? It\u2019s tempting to think that if we just act peaceful, happy, and confident, the emotion will follow. But fear and grief aren\u2019t emotions we can turn off. Peace must be something deeper than an emotion.<\/p>\n

Emotions come and go like the weather, and you can\u2019t wish away a thunderstorm when you\u2019re in the middle of one. What you can do, though, is find shelter.<\/p>\n

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton did find shelter \u2014 and she found peace \u2014 not long after this dark period in her life, in the one choice she had the power to make: a resolute act of the will. She refused to wish that God\u2019s own will concerning her daughter had not come to pass. Because feelings change, but \u201cGod never changes.\u201d All things pass away, but not God. In the end, as St Teresa of Avila knew, God is all we have to rely on. And if He is everything, then He is enough.<\/p>\n

True peace is not an emotion so much as it\u2019s a conviction. I don\u2019t think Mother Seton ever stopped grieving her daughter, or missing her. Friends who\u2019ve lost children tell me that it\u2019s not a wound you ever get over. Even so, she did the only thing any of us can do, and the only thing that could ever make a difference \u2014 where she could not subtract the grief, she added God. She felt the grief, but refused to forget the rest of reality \u2014 the truth of God\u2019s mercy, His power, His love.<\/p>\n

Emotions change, grief clouds our minds for weeks, maybe even years. Nothing we have is as stable as it seems, least of all our emotions themselves. Only God remains the same \u2014 and it\u2019s that truth, as St. Teresa of Avila and Mother Seton knew, that gives us reason to be at peace, no matter what kind of storms are blowing all around us.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will tell you what is my own great help. I once read or heard that an interior life means but the continuation of our Savior’s life within us; that the great object of all His mysteries is to merit for us the grace of His interior life and communicate it to us, it being the end of His mission to lead us into the sweet land of his promise, a life of constant union with Himself.\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ANNA O\u2019NEIL\u00a0<\/strong>likes cows, confession and the color yellow, not necessarily in that order. She lives in Rhode Island with her family, and tries hard to remember that \u201cAnything worth doing is worth doing badly.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Image: Teresa of Avila (detail), Francois Gerard<\/a>, (1827)<\/em><\/p>\n

This reflection was previously published<\/em>. Click aqu\u00ed<\/a> para ver todas las Reflexiones de Seton.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feelings change, emotions rise and fall, but God remains our anchor. It\u2019s that truth, as St. Teresa of Avila and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton knew, that brings us peace, no matter the storms that rage around us.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":58313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1187],"tags":[3654,3747,3749,3653,3748,3746],"class_list":["post-58312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seton-reflections","tag-gods-will","tag-interior-peace","tag-mysticism","tag-saint-elizabeth-ann-seton","tag-spirituality","tag-st-teresa-of-avila"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFinding Interior Peace with St. Teresa of Avila and Mother Seton - Seton Shrine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Feelings change, emotions rise and fall, but God remains our anchor. 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