The
celebration of the Feast of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in January 2001
coincided with the official closing of the Jubilee Door at the National
Shrine in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The Shrine, as one of the officially
designated churches, attracted many pilgrims and emphasized the
global influence of the Church in the third millennium.
The celebrant of the liturgy for the feast, Reverend Michael Kennedy,
C.M., recalled the wide experiences St. Elizabeth Ann had in the
early 19th century. As a young person in New York City, she knew
the social, political and business world of international shipping.
This cultured young woman also knew the sufferings of the loss of
family members and the needs of the poor as she joined her efforts
to those of her friends in giving charitable aid to poor New Yorkers.
The illness of her husband brought her to the culture of Italian
Catholicism when she traveled with him to seek a more favorable
climate. Her own father, Dr. Richard Bayley, working with the Irish
immigrants on Staten Island gave her opportunity to learn of the
sufferings of those homeless victims of communicable diseases.
Two recent issues of The Seton Way have presented articles on the
plans made by the members of the Sisters of Charity Federation |
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Students gather
with the foreign expert before class on a very warm afternoon. All in
this group are studying Instructional Methods in English and plan to
become teachers.
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to collaborate in the Vincentian-Setonian tradition. These articles
also described new ministries developed by Daughters of Charity
in some of the American provinces. Continuing this theme of 21st
century efforts to live the charisma and serve Christ in the person
of the poor, this writer will reflect on the experience of teaching
English as a "foreign expert" in Western China. That section
of China, well known because of construction of the Yangtze River
Dam, is also an area of extensive farms and rural mountain villages.
All provincial and municipal governments are working to modernize
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transportation,
power systems and public services, but many sections still are in
early stages of development. The skies are often gray from soft
coal smoke and the Sichuan Mountains fog covered.
As a Daughter of Charity, the official call to the mission came
to me through the leadership of the Northeast Province and connected
me with the Association for International Teaching, Educational
and Cultural Exchange sponsored by the Irish Columban Fathers and
with the US Catholic China Bureau. Since placement in China must
be coordinated
Continued on page 2 |
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