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Elizabeth Ann Seton in profile at twenty-three, engraved by Charles de Saint-Mémin in New York in 1797

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

A widowed mother of five who became the first saint born in the United States

Patron of
Catholic schools, teachers, widows, those who have lost their parents
Western calendar
4 January
Orthodox calendar
Not kept

Elizabeth Ann Seton was a New York Episcopalian, a wife and the mother of five, widowed at twenty-nine in Italy, where the Filicchi family who took her in spoke to her of their Catholic faith. She entered the Catholic Church in 1805, at the cost of her family's approval and of the pupils at her small school, and in 1809 at Emmitsburg in Maryland she began the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph, the first congregation of religious sisters founded in the United States, with a free school for poor girls. She died in 1821, telling her sisters, "Be children of the Church", and in 1975 she became the first saint born in the United States.

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It is the day each year when the Church remembers a saint in its prayers, and for most saints it is the day they died and went home to God. Many saints here have two dates, because the Western and Orthodox Churches keep their own calendars, and some Orthodox churches still count by the old Julian calendar, which runs thirteen days behind ours.

What is a patron saint?

A patron saint is one we ask to pray for us in a particular place, work or need, as many ask Anthony of Padua for help when something is lost, and as Ireland looks to Patrick. A few patronages were declared by a pope, and most grew from long custom. A card says “Patron of” only where a source we checked names one.

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