Priest / Leader: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
People: Amen
Priest / Leader: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle them in the fire of your Love. Send forth your spirit & they shall be created
People: And you shall renew the face of the earth.
Priest: Let us pray.
O God, who did instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation, through Jesus Christ Our Lord
People: Amen.
Priest/Leader: O Mary, conceived without sin,
People: Pray for us who have recourse to you.
Priest/Leader: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton,
People: Pray for us.
Priest/Leader: Let us pray to the Father in the words of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton:
All: O father, the first rule of our dear Savior’s life/ was to do Your Will. Let His Will of the present moment/ be the first rule of our daily life and work/ with no other desire but for its most and complete accomplishment./ Help us to follow it faithfully,/ so that doing what You wish/ we will be pleasing to You./ Amen.
Priest/Leader: Let us pray to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament
All: Lord Jesus Christ, truly present here before us,/ make our hearts and souls to know and understand/ the grace of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar/ as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton did./ Grant us her fervor in adoration,/ her ardor in communion,/ and her unceasing desire for eternal union with You./ Amen.
Priest/Leader: Let us pray to Our Lady in the words of St. Bernard with which St. Elizabeth Ann Seton first prayed to her.
All: Remember, O most compassionate Virgin Mary,/ that never was it known/ that anyone who fled to your protection,/ implored your assistance,/ or sought your intercession,/ was left unaided./ Inspired with this confidence,/ we fly unto you,/ O Virgin of Virgins, our Mother,/ to you we come,/before you we kneel/ sinful and sorrowful./ O Mother of the World Incarnate,/ despise not our petitions,/ but in your clemency hear and answer them./Amen.
Priest/Leader: Let us pause to ask God for the graces and favors we ask through the intercession of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton during this novena in her honor (here privately make your petitions)
Priest/People: Let us pray.
All: Lord God,/ You blessed Elizabeth Ann Seton/ with gifts of grace as wife and mother, educator & foundress,/ so that she might spend her life/ in service to your people./ Through her example and prayers,/ may we learn to express our love for You/ in love for our fellow men and women. We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,/ who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit./ one God, forever and ever./ Amen.
Priest/Leader: Prayer of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Lord Jesus,/ who was born for us in a stable,/ lived for us a life of pain and sorrow,/ and died for us upon the cross;/ say for us in the hour of death. “Father forgive,”/ and to Thy Mother, “Behold thy child.”/ Say to us, “This day you shall be with Me in paradise.”/ Dear Savior, leave us not, forsake us not./ We thirst for You, Fountain of Living Water./ Our days pass quickly along,/ soon all will be consummated for us../ To your hands we commend our spirits,/ now and forever/ Amen.
Priest/Leader: Final acclamations
All: Elizabeth Ann Seton, you are a saint for our time./
Elizabeth Ann Seton, you are a woman of faith,/ for a time of doubt and uncertainty./
Elizabeth Ann Seton, you are a woman of love,/ for a time of coldness and division./
Elizabeth Ann Seton, you are a woman of hope,/ for a time of crisis and discouragement./ Intercede for our Church and our country./ Amen.
Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament
O Bread of Life
O Bread of Life, O Lord of love,
Give us the strength that is Your light,
For You are Christ, the living God
And in Your grace we find our might
Divine Redeemer, Lord of life,
Teach us to choose the better part;
To choose Yourself, the lasting bread,
Our only need of mind and hearts
Humbly let us voice our homage
For so great a Sacrament,
Let all former rites surrender
To the Lord’s New Testament;
What our senses fail to fathom
Let us grasp through faith’s consent.
Glory, honor, adoration
Let us sing with one accord!
Praised be God, Almighty Father;
Praised be Christ, His Son, Our Lord;
Praised be God the Holy Spirit;
Triune Godhead be adored! Amen.
Priest/Leader: You have given them the bread of heaven,
People: Which has all delight within it.
Priest/Leader: Let us pray.
God, who left us in this wondrous sacrament a memorial of Your Passion, help us, we beg You, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of Your Body and Blood, that we may always experience the effects of Your Redemption who live and reign forever and ever
People: Amen.
The Divine Praises
All: Blessed be God
Blessed be His Holy Name
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus
Blessed be His most Sacred Heart
Blessed be His most Precious Blood
Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete
Blessed be the great Mother God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her Glorious Assumption
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints
May the Heart of Jesus/ in the Most Blessed Sacrament/ be praised, adored and loved with grateful affection/ at every moment/ in all the tabernacles of the world/ even to the end of time. Amen.
Holy God We Praise Thy Name
All Sing: Holy God, we praise Thy name;
Lord of all we bow before Thee;
All on earth Thy rule acclaim,
All in heav’n above adore Thee;
Infinite, Thy vast domain,
Everlasting is Thy reign.
Infinite, Thy vast domain,
Everlasting is Thy reign.
Hark! The loud celestial hymn
Angel choirs above are rising;
Cherubim and Seraphim
In unceasing chorus praising;
Fill the heav’ns with sweet accord;
Holy, holy, holy Lord!
Fill the heav’ns with sweet accord;
Holy, holy, holy Lord!
Seton, Mother Elizabeth Ann (1774–1821), founder of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, educator, first American‐born citizen to be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic church.Born in New York City, Seton was the daughter of Richard Bayley, a physician, and his wife, Catherine Charlton, a daughter of the rector of Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church on Staten Island. Married at age twenty to the New York merchant William Magee Seton, she bore five children before being widowed in 1803. The death of her husband and her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1805 precipitated both her estrangement from her family and her dedication to charitable work among the immigrant poor. She opened her first school in her New York home as a means of supporting herself and her children and reestablished it in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1809 at the invitation of Archbishop John Carroll. Her holiness soon attracted women desirous of living and working with her. Accepting responsibility for leading the women, she adapted the European Daughters of Charity rule to suit their needs. The tuition‐free day school, conducted in conjunction with a residential academy, set the pattern for the parochial school system that grew rapidly as other religious orders responded to the needs of a growing Catholic population. Within a few years of her death from tuberculosis, her Sisters of Charity undertook the direction of Catholic hospitals, thereby forming the nucleus of the Catholic health‐care system. She was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1975.
See also Immigration; Poverty; Religion.
Bibliography
Annabelle M. Melville , Elizabeth Bayley Seton, 1774–1821, 1951.
Annabelle M. Melville and Ellin M. Kelly, eds., Elizabeth Seton: Selected Writings, 1984.
Karen M. Kennelly
