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When looking over today’s Gospel and reviewing the life of Elizabeth Ann Seton, who we celebrate and remember today, my mind went back to Pottstown’s attempt this summer to prevent Christ Episcopal Church from doing the work God has given us to do in order to, as we quoted from Jesus at the beginning of this service, “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
Pottstown again is trying to limit the work of Christ Church by asking for “notification” of any “additional uses” for Christ Church’s ministry in the future. You can learn more at our Diocese’s website.
Pottstown showed this summer that they do not understand a key part our mission as followers of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is to love our neighbor. They also fail to realize the special love God has for the needy, the poor, and the widow and orphan.
Elizabeth Ann Seton showed this love in her life. As a wife and mother, she spent her free time founding the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, the very people God calls on us to help throughout Scripture.
Unfortunately, 6 years into her marriage, their family’s business went bankrupt, and 2 years after that her husband William grew sick and eventually died. Now she became a widow with 5 children to take care of.
Fortunately the church helped her at this time, and as such, her poured herself further into her Faith. She continued to work with the poor, and eventually founded the first community of sisters in the U.S., the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. Part of their work was providing schools for “needy girls”.
Our Gospel today exemplifies her ministry. When the Host’s supposed friends in Jesus’ parable refuse to take Him up on His offer for dinner, he instead invites “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” God shows love to those who need our Lord the most, and these are the ones who, like Seton in her own time of great need, heed God’s call.
The Gospel today also mirrors what Jesus says in Matthew 19:24, that it will be “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”
These are the lessons we need to remind Pottstown of once again. God loves the poor and the sick, the widow and the orphan. God calls out to those who most need God’s love. God wishes us to show love and care for the same. Elizabeth Ann Seton did so with her life, both giving and receiving aid. Can we follow her example and do the same?