Today we make Lent Madness hist0ry. While Old Testament figures are considered saints in some traditions, we have never before had one participate in the Saintly Smackdown. That ends today as Sarah the Matriarch faces Elizabeth Ann Seton in a pairing that spans many, many generations.
Yesterday, in the Battle of the Consonants, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky outspelled Nikolaus von Zinzendorf 69% to 31% to advance to the Saintly Sixteen where he'll face Martin Luther.
If you missed yesterday's Limerick Edition of Monday Madness, you can still redeem your entire week by watching it here. Tim and Scott share some limericks (both on air and in print) and, despite some amazing rhymes throughout yesterday's comment section, have officially decided NOT to turn Lent Madness into one giant penitential poetry slam.
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in New York City in 1774, two years before the United States declared independence from England. Her father was a very popular doctor, and her maternal grandfather was an Anglican priest. Seton’s parents set examples of service and charity that she would follow her whole life.
Seton had a lonely and difficult childhood, losing her biological mother to death and her stepmother to a family rift. In 1794 she married William Seton at a service performed by Bishop Samuel Provoost, the first Episcopal bishop of New York. She and her family were congregants of Trinity Church.
Three years into her marriage, her father in-law died; a few years later, her husband succumbed to tuberculosis, after having lost the bulk of the family’s wealth and social status. Seton found herself a young widow with five children and few resources. She eventually found solace in the Roman Catholic tradition, into which she was received in 1805.
Her world changed again in the next year when she met the Rev. Louis Dubourg, a Roman Catholic priest who wanted to start a Catholic seminary for women in the United States. This piqued Elizabeth’s interest and drive, and in 1809 Elizabeth founded the Sisters of Charity, the first community of nuns who were also citizens of the United States. She professed her vows and became “Mother Seton.”
Locating their community in Maryland, the sisters dedicated themselves to education, social services, and religious formation. In 1810 the community began
St. Joseph’s Free School, the first Roman Catholic school in America, and launched the Roman Catholic parochial school system in the United States. Mother Seton and her order also founded and operated orphanages in major cities along the East Coast.
Seton remained the Mother of the Sisters of Charity until her death from tuberculosis at age 46 on January 4, 1821. She was the first native-born citizen of the United States to become a saint. Her feast is commemorated on January 4.
Collect for Elizabeth Ann Seton
Holy God, you blessed Elizabeth Seton with your grace as wife, mother, educator and founder, that she might spend her life in service to your people: Help us, by her example, to express our love for you in love of others; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Sarah
Sarah (formerly Sarai), daughter of Terah, wife of Abraham, first of the matriarchs in the Old Testament, is the mother of nations.
When Sarah was 90 years old, three strangers came to visit her tent. She and her husband and their household had been living in tents for the last twenty-five years, and she had seen and heard plenty. Abraham and his God were the mainstays of Sarah’s life; even her name had been changed as they journeyed toward a place of promise. She was Abraham’s half-sister and younger by about ten years. Abraham had pulled more than one rabbit out of his hat by diplomatically omitting the nuptial aspect of their association. He was also insistent that God had promised them a child—together. Sarah had heard some crazy things come out of Abraham’s mouth and had seen some crazy things standing at his side, but when she heard the three strangers tell Abraham that she—Sarah—would hold her very own baby in just a short while, she laughed out loud. She had been in the desert a long time, but she wasn’t all the way crazy.
Sarah laughed Isaac into the world and held the living proof of God’s promise in her own hands. If we are honest, we can imagine her making the totally opposite noise some years later when Abraham took the boy off into the badlands, clumsily trying to explain to her that God had asked him to do another impossible thing.
Some years after Abraham and Isaac returned from Moriah, Sarah died. In the first recorded commercial transaction in the Bible, Abraham bought a resting place for the woman who had moved everywhere with him and who had died while he was away on business. And in the first burial recorded in the Old Testament, Abraham lays the bones of Sarah down to rest overlooking the oaks of Mamre from where her daughter-in-law Rebekah would come. Sarah is remembered for her devotion, bravery, tenacity, and laughter.
Collect for Sarah
Ancient of Days, you have called nations into being which number more than the grains of sand on all the beaches in all the world. Thank you for Sarah, who journeyed through deserts toward a land of promise, entertained angels, laughed a promised child into the world, and mothered nations. Help us, like her, to remain faithful to your promises, no matter how unlikely the world may find them. We pray this in the name of your son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
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301 comments on “Elizabeth Ann Seton vs. Sarah”
My best friend attended St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Ontario, CA. The Sisters of Charity are still very active. My friend even went on a trip to Zimbabwe to work with them on an orphanage. It's great to see the work continue!
Sorry that Sarah is winning. Yes, I love the idea of OT saints - just not her. How many times did she let herself be used by men? Really - laughing - is a reason to vote for her - give me a break.
And speaking from the infertility standpoint, not 90 but coming on 50, any woman who wants a child would be thrilled to be pregnant, no matter what the age.
Mother Seaton did so much and empowered so much. I'm all about her. She is role model for all people, men and women in the church.
I voted for Sarah, for several reasons, a couple of which don't seem to make much sense, perhaps only to myself. First, Sarah , like you say, MUST have put up with quite a bit, living in harsh conditions with the knowledge hanging over her that she'd been unable to have a child; a disgrace. In those days, for a woman. I am so glad for her that at last she became a mother. Now the two weirder reasons I didn't vote for Mother Seton. I was raised Roman Catholic, (am now Lutheran,) attended parochial school, and let me tell you, almost without exception, the order she founded, Sisters of Charity, were anything BUT charitable to the children in their care. I remember them being so mean, it would have been better if Mother Seton hadn't started the order. Secondly, I have always wondered what became of her own children when he became a nun. If I remember correctly, they were still "kids" When she took vows. If she left them to the care of others in order to do so, I don't think that was right.
From previous comments it appears she was allowed to stay a mother while becoming a Mother.
I had some aweful experiences in public K-12.
I voted for Mother Seton because she was real.
As was Sarah.
I went with Sarah because she laughed! That si one of my favorite comments in the Bible-the reference to her giggling over what she hears.
As the product of three Catholic schools, I have to vote for Mother Seton who launched the Catholic school system.
And while I lift up Sarah along with Abraham and love the story of her laughter, I cannot overlook her mistreatment of her enslaved servant Hagar, who she handed over to her husband to rape so that he might sire a child and then threw out of her household, along with the child, when she felt herself affronted and her own son threatened.
I just couldn't bring myself to vote for Sarah, who never knew of Jesus, much less proclaimed the Gospel. I'm not all that impressed by Mother Seton, but in the battle between Old and New Covenants, she gets my vote.
I must give kudos to David Creech for writing what I think must be the most delightful tongue in cheek bio so far in Lent Madness. Apologies, Neva Rae. You usually get my vote!
I find it fascinating that people are critical of Elizabeth Seton for perhaps abandoning her children, which she did *not* do, as links above show, but are totally cool that Sarah sent Hagar and Ishmael into the desert with no resources.
I have a procedural question here.
When we consider saints from the ancient (including Biblical) or medieval eras, are we supposed to take mythic or legendary aspects of their stories at face value? Or are we expected to use our critical faculties in evaluating the heart of the stories?
I feel that many of us are voting here using a far more literal interpretation of the Sarah-Hagar-Ishmael story than is justified in terms of the way that most OT scholars read the text. It's Genesis, after all. It's the same book with the Adam/Eve, Noah, and Babel stories that very few of us would literalise.
I voted for Sarah just to be ornery. Somehow, I think Sarah was not near 90, probably I messed with menopause. I have also have had suspicions about anyone of those visitors. Poor Sarah having to be responsible for many generations and Abraham gets the credit.
Oops, I didn' mean "I". should be Nature messed with her menopause.
and "any one" of those visitors.
Elizabeth did more than Sarah. Vote for her. Elizabeth took charge of her life and gave her life to education.
I am confused. If Elizabeth was married in 1894 and had 5 children before her husband died, what happened to her children when she became Mother of the Sisters of Charity in 1909? The oldest would have been 14 at the most. Widows become nuns, but I don't think they bring their children with them when they do.
Lots of people had this question, Roxanne, and a great many people researched it. It was all good. Go back through many of those posts! Seek and ye shall find!