Today we celebrate Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was really just an amazing, amazing woman. She really had the experience of many different vocations, so to speak. She was born a member of the Episcopal Church. She was in a married a man who was very much involved with shipping, and so she lived a life of means.
While she was in Italy, she encountered the Blessed Sacrament, and that kindled in her a desire to become Catholic, which she did. When her husband died, she became very much interested in education. In fact, the Catholic school system in the United States owes much of its success to her vision.
And because she needed teachers for these schools, she in fact founded a religious community. She ran through the whole gamut of religious vocations, not having been born Catholic, having become Catholic, having been married, having founded a religious community.
But there's one thing that was constant in her life, which we hear about in today's Gospel, zeal. There was a desire for zeal. There was a desire for the truth. There was a desire for faith. In everything she did, this zeal became the center and the driving force of her life.
Today in the Gospel, we hear a very similar story. John the Baptist was one, as we know, who was filled with zeal. He preached the Gospel in the desert to those who really wanted to change their life, not just a little, but in a hardcore way. To get back to the root and the value of the Jewish faith.
One such person that hears him is St. Andrew. Obviously, his life was changed by him, and he believed in John. So when John points out Jesus, Andrew is immediately convinced. This is the Messiah. Then he does what I think is the hallmark of a disciple of Jesus. He tells.
He shares this faith of his, this discovery that he has found something miraculous and wonderful, that he has found the Messiah, and he shares it with his brother. That's the hardcore thing I think that Catholics need to rediscover. We need to share our faith. We need to share with others that we have found something that has so changed our lives that we do not want to keep it to ourselves.
In fact, we don't think we could keep it to ourselves because we recognize that we have something in the very core of who we are that could benefit others, could bring fulfillment into their life, could help them to recognize that in spite of all the difficulties of life, they are never alone.
That's what Andrew does with Peter, and we know the two of them are going to go on to do that for others. Today, let us ask the intercession of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, that in what we do, we may do all we can because of the zeal that our faith provides in our hearts.
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