In her late twenties, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton went through extremely difficult times. Several relatives, including her father, died from disease. Her husband William’s business was ruined and he himself became sick. Hoping for a recovery in both William’s health and finances, the couple adventurously left the United States for Livorno, Italy. They took along their eight-year-old eldest daughter Anna Maria and left their younger four children with relatives in the United States. At the time, Saint Elizabeth Ann was Episcopalian.

Sadly, her husband died a few months after their arrival in Italy. William was a business partner with an Italian family. This generous Italian family welcomed Saint Elizabeth Ann and Anna Maria into their home. This family was Catholic. They saw Saint Elizabeth Ann’s piety and charisma and were perhaps the first ones to imagine that she could become a light for the emergent Catholic Church in the United States. They tried to convince her to convert.

Saint Elizabeth Ann was reluctant at the beginning. The beautiful churches of nearby Florence did not move her. She was too consumed by her profound grief to take notice of their magnificent architecture and art. God reaches out to us exactly where we are at. God reached Saint Elizabeth Ann right there in Livorno. God used the Holy Mass at the humble local Catholic church to inspire her.  

Traditionally, Episcopalians understand the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ to be symbolic, not literal. However, at Mass in the humble Livorno Catholic church, her heart became open to the body and blood of Christ present in the Holy Eucharist. Saint Elizabeth Ann craved God’s presence and there she was told God could be had each Sunday when the Eucharist was accepted. The extraordinary access of the divine in the Eucharist fascinated her. 

Saint Elizabeth Ann did not convert in Italy. A few months later she returned to New York and shortly after turned away from her traditional Episcopalian upbringing. Several things held her back from becoming a Catholic, especially the thought of the professional and marital future of their children whose prospects as Catholics would be less bright in the society of the day.

An emotional revelation, not a rational analysis of her family situation, was what helped her make the decision to become Catholic. One day she attended a service at the Episcopalian Church and felt a strong aversion to the symbolic Eucharist that was offered. “If I left the house a Protestant, I returned to it a Catholic”, she wrote. She became a catechumen and was received into the Catholic Church a year later.

The Eucharist was the key aspect in Saint Elizabeth Ann’s conversion to Catholicism. Today’s readings are about the Holy Eucharist. The feast of rich food and choice wines that the prophet Isaiah talks about is ultimately heaven and eternal life, which the Holy Mass prefigures for us in this world. In the gospel’s reading the Lord invites many to a wedding feast. He says, “Behold, I have prepared my banquet, my calves and fattened cattle are killed, and everything is ready; come to the feast”. Again, this wedding feast is heaven prefigured by the Holy Eucharist.

Saint Elizabeth Ann as the first American born saint and the patroness saint of our parish, is a great example for us about growing in the belief in the Real Presence and in the love for our Lord in the Eucharist. Providentially, the Catholic Church of the United States is holding a National Eucharistic Revival this year. As a matter of fact, many Catholics from all over the Diocese will gather in Raleigh this coming Saturday to hold a Diocesan Eucharistic Congress.

Having not much time left today, I would like to conclude the homily by offering a prayer to our model patroness Saint for all of us, especially for those members of our Church who have heard the Lord’s invitation to his feast and continue to make excuses for responding positively to him. I pray to Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton that she intercedes for us, first, to become fascinated by the extraordinary access of the divine in the Holy Eucharist and, second, to have a spiritual revelation for the mystery of the Real Presence. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, pray for us.