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Docent From East Central Province
The trip from BWI to Emmitsburg on July 5, 1999 was for me a return to
my roots, a homecoming. Thirty years after the division of the two U.S.
Provinces into five, I was returning to the cradle
of my vocation, and I did so with great anticipation as well as some trepidation.
Although the sisters from the East Central Province who have served in
the Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton have nothing but good to say about the
assignment, I knew I would have to experience it myself to be sure that I could fill
the role of a docent at the shrine.
The welcome was warm as was the temperature and the orientation
thorough. In a very short time I was a docent and a great Sabbath experience was
commencing. Since a docent by definition is a knowledgeable person, I began to
read extensively of St. Elizabeth Ann and to walk daily with her in this valley
which she loved so much. To watch the sun rise and set over the same horizons that
she contemplated, to tread the same ground and seek shade from the same
noonday sun and especially to experience the peace of this beautiful place makes
me feel very close to her.
As I sit in the Stone House I can feel Mother Seton bustling
about to oversee the down-to-earth activities of her infant Community. In the
Stone House in particular I think of the brave women who came together to form a
religious community when most of them had little idea of what a religious
community was.
Their "Order of the Day" was rather formidable and
demanded great discipline of women so recently arrived
from their comfortable homes in the world. By Mother Seton's own admission
there were frequent deviations from the rule as life's necessities required. |
The
eleven women and five children who valiantly bore the discomforts of the small
farm house during the hot summer and cold winter of 1809-10 provide me with
new inspiration every time I reflect on their heroic lives. That most of their
lives were relatively short is not surprising given the rigors they endured.
In the White House I can feel
the presence of the children who filled the house very quickly after the fledgling
community made its move there in February 1810. Although a
certain discipline was imposed on the children, too, I think that giggles
couldn't be suppressed, nor shrieks of laughter nor tears held in check. I can feel
the great love Mother Seton had for all of them since first and foremost she was
a mother, to her own children, to the students and to her sisters. Also,
when I'm alone in the White House I reenact in my mind the scene of the
saint's death and feel the desolation her daughter, Catherine, and her first sisters
must have felt when they realized that her indomitable spirit had taken flight to.
From left to right, Sr. Helen Edward Dodd - Northeast Province, Sr. Cecilia
Rose, Shrine Administrator, mannequin "Betsy" in the center, Sr. Virginia Dunker -
West Central Province, and Sr. Mary Ann O'Brien - East Central Province.
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