Charity and Hospitality: Praying through Advent with St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

December 22, 2025 - Monday of the Fourth Week of Advent

"If only you will cultivate the true spirit of a man, and give your noble soul its rights, and our God His rights, so immense and endearing!" -St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, to her son, William

I imagine that a woman giving birth to her first child will experience a wide range of thoughts and emotions, from joy, to love, to pride, relief, exhaustion, worry, and fear. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton must have experienced all of those with her son William. If she feared anything, it would be the possibility that he or any of her children would lose the salvation Christ won for them. Like any faithful mother, she wished for her children, beginning with William, to live in such a way that their salvation in Christ is certain in God’s redeeming love. God’s “immense and endearing rights” for William and Elizabeth would be the obedience to God’s will, the patience in their various trials, and the absolute faithfulness to the Lord in every trial.  

I have heard it said by a mother, reflecting on giving birth, that it was “like a room opening in my heart that I did not know existed.” The greater the welcome, the greater the possibility for joy. Elizabeth Seton experienced this expansive presence of life at the birth of William and his siblings. Mary, our mother in faith, encountered the expansive joy of God when she received the Word in her flesh which she first received in her heart with prayer and expectation. Mary made room for the Incarnation of the Word in her flesh. Mary’s Magnificat echoes in the prayer of the Church every day through priests, consecrated religious women and men, and the faithful who pray the Liturgy of the Hours. God remembers his promise and comes to our help. Mary helps us welcome the Word in the open spaces of our hearts.  

Elizabeth would faithfully meditate on the Scripture in her life. After her conversion in Italy, she would pray the Magnificat daily. It is the Word of God received that would teach her to serve the poor, the orphan, to love with fidelity, to sacrifice with generosity, and to persevere in obedience. Even amid severe suffering, Elizabeth held on to the strength of her faith and passed that gift on to her children and her community. Today is an invitation for us to read Scripture daily, to welcome the living Word, and to let Jesus make His home in our hearts. May Mother Seton help us to calm our hearts, receive the seed of His Word, and bear good fruit in His love.  

O God, who, seeing the human race fallen into death, willed to redeem it by the coming of your Only Begotten Son, grant, we pray, that those who confess his Incarnation with humble fervor may merit his company as their Redeemer. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. (Roman Missal)

Rev. Roberto Ortiz, Vice Rector, Director of Liturgy, and Adjunct Professor of Systematic Theology

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