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

December 18, 2025 - Thursday of the Third Week of Advent

"Oh, dear, dear Eternity, come, take me from this earth." -St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Advent is the season of waiting as we long to receive The One Who has received us without condition. It is learning to be ready to receive Christ, to show Him hospitality. Hospitality says through words and actions, “It is good that you exist, and I want to receive the gift that you are.” It is treating others with the dignity they have as a person made in the image and likeness of our loving God. Hospitality disposes us to receive the gift of the other, first and foremost as a gift. It requires us to combat our subconscious tendency to judge others as “like me or not,” “worth knowing or not,” “likeable or unlikeable,” etc. Hospitality requires a radical choice to be available to all and to challenge our prejudices - a demanding exercise of charity! Why? Because it is extending the radical hospitality God has granted us. 

“Oh dear, dear Eternity” 

Mother Seton experienced God’s hospitality: the Lord extended a warm welcome to her person, and this led to a relationship of trust and transforming love. She could be transformed because she knew she was safe in Jesus’s loving presence. This trust is made manifest by her words, “Oh dear, dear Eternity.” Those we hold as “dear” are those whom we trust and love, those who have received us well. I want to spend this season of waiting by preparing my heart to welcome Christ and to welcome others; I want to be “dear” for those whom I encounter. 

“Come, take me” 

“Come” is the cry of Advent. Yet this desire “come, take me” can also be heard as the whisper of every heart that waits to be welcomed. When we’re walking and passing others, when we enter a room, when sitting alone, our hearts whisper “Come, take me, someone show me love, show me I matter, show me I am a gift, not a burden or a problem to fix, welcome me.” Ultimately, we know we will fall short of extending God’s hospitality. Let us not be afraid to practice hospitality as we prepare to receive Jesus this Christmas in our hearts and ultimately on the last day. Let us make the prayer of Mother Seton our own as we walk through this life, as we await in hope of the eternal day of welcome in the communion of saints. “Oh dear, dear Eternity, come, take me from this earth.” 

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who are weighted down from of old by slavery beneath the yoke of sin, may be set free by the newness of the long-awaited Nativity of your Only Begotten Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.  (Roman Missal)

Sr. Lety Guadalupe, CSJ, Campus Ministry

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