Last month, I had the privilege of being on a retreat with faith-filled and inspiring women of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish in Wyckoff, NJ, and several other local parishes. The theme that developed during our three days together was cultivating the eyes of our hearts. It seems a particularly appropriate theme for our Advent journey, one that St. Elizabeth Ann Seton knew well and witnessed to so beautifully.
St. Elizabeth knew darkness—the darkness of abandonment, betrayal, confusion, disappointments, losses, and setbacks. If we were to discuss our challenges with St. Elizabeth, we would find a friend who would listen with her heart, relating to each difficulty with deep empathy and compassion. I imagine her assuring us that she, too, experienced times when she didn’t feel God’s presence, and other times when she wondered if she were worthy to be invited into His company. She would explain that God’s light often shone unexpectedly through the darkness of her life, illuminating her path, and helping her to see and experience the Divine amidst life’s turmoil. I imagine that she would give us an Advent assignment to use all our senses to wake up to the reality of God’s presence today.
One scene in Elizabeth’s life particularly illustrates the interplay between darkness and light. The year was 1803 when Elizabeth, her ailing husband William, and their young daughter Anna, undertook a harrowing voyage by sea to Italy. Elizabeth hoped that the new environment would be restorative and healing for her husband. Her hopes immediately were dashed as the family was quarantined in a lazaretto, a brutally cold and dank holding station. Here for one month, the family breathed in dirt and dust and was tormented by the wind that tore through the cracks in the wall. William’s health took a terrible turn for the worse, and Elizabeth braced for his death.
One morning, looking pensively out the lazaretto’s one window to the sea, Elizabeth noticed enormous white waves crashing against the nearby rocks. It was as though beholding the scene of powerful beauty catapulted her out of the miserable conditions to the wonder of creation and the reality of God’s love. Writing to her sister-in-law, Rebecca, she marveled, “I first came to my senses and reflected that I was offending my only Friend and resource in my misery and voluntarily shutting out from my Soul the only consolation it could receive—pleading for Mercy and Strength brought Peace.”
May we, too, be brought to our senses this Advent, as we listen to Jesus’ words directed to us: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.” With the eyes of our hearts, may we use our senses in our dark days, as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton did, to experience the beauty around us and the consolation of Divine friendship. May our patroness intercede for us so that we may accept His loving hospitality and extend it to all we meet today.
