Tag: teachers

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Saint of the Day – January 4th – Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Story

Mother Seton is one of the keystones of the American Catholic Church. She founded the first American religious community for women, the Sisters of Charity. She opened the first American parish school and established the first American Catholic orphanage. All this she did in the span of 46 years while raising her five children.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is a true daughter of the American Revolution, born August 28, 1774, just two years before the Declaration of Independence. By birth and marriage, she was linked to the first families of New York and enjoyed the fruits of high society. Reared a staunch Episcopalian, she learned the value of prayer, Scripture and a nightly examination of conscience. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, did not have much use for churches but was a great humanitarian, teaching his daughter to love and serve others.

The early deaths of her mother in 1777 and her baby sister in 1778 gave Elizabeth a feel for eternity and the temporariness of the pilgrim life on earth. Far from being brooding and sullen, she faced each new “holocaust,” as she put it, with hopeful cheerfulness.

At 19, Elizabeth was the belle of New York and married a handsome, wealthy businessman, William Magee Seton. They had five children before his business failed and he died of tuberculosis. At 30, Elizabeth was widowed and penniless, with five small children to support.

While in Italy with her dying husband, Elizabeth witnessed Catholicity in action through family friends. Three basic points led her to become a Catholic: belief in the Real Presence, devotion to the Blessed Mother and conviction that the Catholic Church led back to the apostles and to Christ. Many of her family and friends rejected her when she became a Catholic in March 1805.

To support her children, she opened a school in Baltimore. From the beginning, her group followed the lines of a religious community, which was officially founded in 1809.

The thousand or more letters of Mother Seton reveal the development of her spiritual life from ordinary goodness to heroic sanctity. She suffered great trials of sickness, misunderstanding, the death of loved ones (her husband and two young daughters) and the heartache of a wayward son. She died January 4, 1821, and became the first American-born citizen to be beatified (1963) and then canonized (1975). She is buried in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Reflection

Elizabeth Ann Seton had no extraordinary gifts. She was not a mystic or stigmatic. She did not prophesy or speak in tongues. She had two great devotions: abandonment to the will of God and an ardent love for the Blessed Sacrament. She wrote to a friend, Julia Scott, that she would prefer to exchange the world for a “cave or a desert.” “But God has given me a great deal to do, and I have always and hope always to prefer his will to every wish of my own.” Her brand of sanctity is open to everyone if we love God and do his will.

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is a Patron Saint of:

Catholic Schools
Educators/Teachers
Loss of Parents
Widows

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Saint of the Day – January 5 – Saint John Neumann

(MARCH 28, 1811 – JANUARY 5, 1860)

Saint of the Day for January 5

Saint John Neumann’s Story

Perhaps because the United States got a later start in the history of the world, it has relatively few canonized saints, but their number is increasing.

John Neumann was born in what is now the Czech Republic. After studying in Prague, he came to New York at 25 and was ordained a priest. He did missionary work in New York until he was 29, when he joined the Redemptorists and became its first member to profess vows in the United States. He continued missionary work in Maryland, Virginia and Ohio, where he became popular with the Germans.

At 41, as bishop of Philadelphia, he organized the parochial school system into a diocesan one, increasing the number of pupils almost twentyfold within a short time.

Gifted with outstanding organizing ability, he drew into the city many teaching communities of sisters and the Christian Brothers. During his brief assignment as vice provincial for the Redemptorists, he placed them in the forefront of the parochial movement.

Well-known for his holiness and learning, spiritual writing and preaching, on October 13, 1963, John Neumann became the first American bishop to be beatified. Canonized in 1977, he is buried in St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia.

Reflection

Neumann took seriously our Lord’s words, “Go and teach all nations.” From Christ he received his instructions and the power to carry them out. For Christ does not give a mission without supplying the means to accomplish it. The Father’s gift in Christ to John Neumann was his exceptional organizing ability, which he used to spread the Good News. Today the Church is in dire need of men and women to continue in our times the teaching of the Good News. The obstacles and inconveniences are real and costly. Yet when Christians approach Christ, he supplies the necessary talents to answer today’s needs. The Spirit of Christ continues his work through the instrumentality of generous Christians.

Saint John Neumann is a Patron Saint of:

Educators/Teachers

//Franciscan Media//

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Saint of the Day – October 21 – Saint Ursula & Her 11,000 Companions

St. Ursula (4th c.) was a pious Christian princess from Britain, perhaps Wales. According to the 13th century Golden Legend she set sail and embarked on a pilgrimage to Rome with a large court of handmaids prior to settling in what is today western France, where she was to be joined in marriage to a local governor. Along her pilgrimage route she attracted many followers who were influenced by her holy example. On the return journey St. Ursula and her traveling maidens fell into the hands of the Huns, violent nomads from the East, who had invaded large swaths of Europe. St. Ursula and her company of virgins and other followers, which numbered 11,000, were tortured in an effort to have them renounce their faith. Steadfastly refusing, they were massacred in Cologne, Germany and buried together in a mass grave over which was built the Basilica of St. Ursula. Due to the varying accounts of her martyrdom and the difficulty of separating fact from legend, her feast day was suppressed in modern times. St. Ursula is the patroness of the Ursulines, a female religious order founded in 1535 by St. Angela Merici for the education of young girls. St. Ursula is also the patron of students, teachers, Catholic education, and of a holy death. Her feast day is October 21st.

//Catholic Company//

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Saint of the Day – November 15 – Saint Albert the Great

1206 – November 15, 1280

Saint Albert the Great’s Story

Albert the Great was a 13th-century German Dominican who decisively influenced the Church’s stance toward Aristotelian philosophy brought to Europe by the spread of Islam.

Students of philosophy know him as the master of Thomas Aquinas. Albert’s attempt to understand Aristotle’s writings established the climate in which Thomas Aquinas developed his synthesis of Greek wisdom and Christian theology. But Albert deserves recognition on his own merits as a curious, honest, and diligent scholar.

He was the eldest son of a powerful and wealthy German lord of military rank. He was educated in the liberal arts. Despite fierce family opposition, he entered the Dominican novitiate.

His boundless interests prompted him to write a compendium of all knowledge: natural science, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, ethics, economics, politics, and metaphysics. His explanation of learning took 20 years to complete. “Our intention,” he said, “is to make all the aforesaid parts of knowledge intelligible to the Latins.”

He achieved his goal while serving as an educator at Paris and Cologne, as Dominican provincial, and even as bishop of Regensburg for a short time. He defended the mendicant orders and preached the Crusade in Germany and Bohemia.

Albert, a Doctor of the Church, is the patron of scientists and philosophers.

Reflection

An information glut faces us Christians today in all branches of learning. One needs only to read current Catholic periodicals to experience the varied reactions to the findings of the social sciences, for example, in regard to Christian institutions, Christian life-styles, and Christian theology. Ultimately, in canonizing Albert, the Church seems to point to his openness to truth, wherever it may be found, as his claim to holiness. His characteristic curiosity prompted Albert to mine deeply for wisdom within a philosophy his Church warmed to with great difficulty.

Saint Albert the Great is a Patron Saint of:

Educators/Teachers
Medical Technicians
Philosophers
Scientists

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Saint of the Day – September 3 – Saint Gregory the Great

(C. 540 – MARCH 12, 604)

Saint Gregory the Great’s Story

Gregory was the prefect of Rome before he was 30. After five years in office he resigned, founded six monasteries on his Sicilian estate, and became a Benedictine monk in his own home at Rome.

Ordained a priest, Gregory became one of the pope’s seven deacons, and also served six years in the East as papal representative in Constantinople. He was recalled to become abbot, but at the age of 50 was elected pope by the clergy and people of Rome.

Gregory was direct and firm. He removed unworthy priests from office, forbade taking money for many services, emptied the papal treasury to ransom prisoners of the Lombards and to care for persecuted Jews and the victims of plague and famine. He was very concerned about the conversion of England, sending 40 monks from his own monastery. He is known for his reform of the liturgy, and for strengthening respect for doctrine. Whether he was largely responsible for the revision of “Gregorian” chant is disputed.

Gregory lived in a time of perpetual strife with invading Lombards and difficult relations with the East. When Rome itself was under attack, he interviewed the Lombard king.

His book, Pastoral Care, on the duties and qualities of a bishop, was read for centuries after his death. He described bishops mainly as physicians whose main duties were preaching and the enforcement of discipline. In his own down-to-earth preaching, Gregory was skilled at applying the daily Gospel to the needs of his listeners. Called “the Great,” Gregory has been given a place with Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, as one of the four key doctors of the Western Church.

An Anglican historian has written: “It is impossible to conceive what would have been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of the Middle Ages without the medieval papacy; and of the medieval papacy, the real father is Gregory the Great.”

Reflection

Gregory was content to be a monk, but he willingly served the Church in other ways when asked. He sacrificed his own preferences in many ways, especially when he was called to be Bishop of Rome. Once he was called to public service, Gregory gave his considerable energies completely to this work. Gregory’s description of bishops as physicians fits in well with Pope Francis’ description of the Church as a “field hospital.”

Saint Gregory the Great is the Patron Saint of:

England
Epilepsy
Musicians
Teachers

//Franciscan Media//

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Saint of the Day – August 13 – Saint Cassian of Imola

St. Cassian of Imola (4th c.) was the Bishop of Brescia near Milan, Italy. When a wave of persecution erupted under the Roman Emperor, Cassian fled to Imola, Italy, where he found work as a schoolmaster teaching children how to read and write. He was a disciplined and effective educator. In addition to instructing his students in the Christian faith, he also taught them a form of shorthand that allowed them to write as fast as they could speak. A city official discovered that Cassian was a Christian and denounced him to the government authorities. Cassian was arrested and ordered to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods, which he refused. As punishment the local judge ordered that he be stripped, bound, and tied to a stake. He was then turned over to his pagan students, numbering about 200, to be tortured to death. His students used their iron styli (writing instruments) to mercilessly carve into his skin and slowly stab him to death. St. Cassian died from the many wounds inflicted all over his body. St. Cassian of Imola is the patron saint of students, school teachers, shorthand writers, court reporters, stenographers, and parish clerks. His feast day is August 13th.

//Catholic Company//