Heroes of the Church
   in the Late 17th to Late 19th Centuries (continued)

St. Seraphim of Sarov was a Russian monastic and mystic in the Russian Orthodox Church.  At one point he lived as an ascetic hermit, spending one thousand days and nights kneeling in prayer on a rock, stopping only to attend mass and meet the necessities of life. His prayer was what is now known as the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!" He fully absorbed himself in this prayer and made his physical discomfort part of it.

St. Seraphim's heroic prayer life bore fruit in the Holy Spirit with the gifts of prophecy, reading of souls, and healing. People came to St. Seraphim to be counseled and healed.  His unconditional love for others was so great that some said he actually glowed. He greeted all his visitors with a rousing "Christ is Risen!"

St. Seraphim's wisdom comes to us in his writings.  In his "On Acquiring the Holy Spirit", St. Seraphim says "[a]cquiring the Spirit of God is the true aim of our Christian life, while prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works done for Christ's sake are merely means for acquiring the Spirit of God."  In his work Light of Christ, he describes how to become aware of Christ in us:

"In order to accept and perceive the light of Christ in one’s heart, it is necessary to divert oneself from the external as much as possible. First, by cleansing the soul with penitence and good deeds with true faith in the Crucified; then, by closing the physical eyes, it is necessary to immerse the mind in the heart and appeal to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ continually. Then, by measure of our zealousness and fervor of spirit for the Beloved (Lk. 3:22), a person with the calling of this name finds delight, which arouses a thirst toward greater enlightenment."

St. Seraphim died in 1833.

Born into a prominent New York City family in 1774, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was intelligent, well educated, charming, and pretty. Parties, balls, and music were large parts of her early life. She met a handsome wealthy man and married in 1794.  After a happy home life with five children, the fortunes of the Seton family began to decline. In less than five years, her husband's business went bankrupt, her father died of yellow fever, and her husband died of tuberculosis.

Her husband had died in Italy where he had gone to convalesce with St. Elizabeth and their eldest daughter. Finding herself alone to support her children and ill herself in a foreign country, St. Elizabeth sought reassurance by attending mass with her Italian friends. 

At this point in her life St. Elizabeth had been a Protestant Episcopalian (an offshoot of the Church of England/Anglican Catholic Church).  In Italy, however, she found herself being drawn to the Roman Catholic belief of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  She took comfort from that idea.

St. Elizabeth returned to New York City a poor woman. She moved her family of five children into a house her friends provided, eventually starting a boarding house for students as a means of earning a living.

Despite the immediate worries of her life, St. Elizabeth never forgot the experience of attending mass in Italy. Although her early life had been filled with worldly delights, the young Elizabeth had always had a spiritual life. As a child she had fantasized of being a religious instructor to children and of becoming a Quaker. As a woman, these childhood wishes ripened into love of her fellow man and true desire to serve God.  While tending to her husband and five children, St. Elizabeth had made time to found New York City's Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children. She read the Bible and attended Protestant Episcopal services regularly.  Even as her husband's health and business failed, St. Elizabeth had been moved by the starving immigrant Irish babies her physician father treated on Staten Island. She had asked her father if she might nurse these babies since their own mothers were unable to, but her father refused this extraordinary request.  The spiritual journey of this impoverished single mother of five eventually led her to become a Roman Catholic in 1805.

St. Elizabeth's Protestant friends, who had previously supported her with money and a home, withdrew their support after her conversion. To earn a living, St. Elizabeth thought she might use her excellent education to work as a teacher. To that end she tried to start a Roman Catholic school in New York City. However, she was thwarted by bigotry against Roman Catholics. At the suggestion and assistance of a priest visiting from Baltimore, she went to Maryland where she opened a religious school for girls.

Joined by her two sisters-in-law (who had also become Roman Catholics), her three daughters, and four other women, St. Elizabeth founded what was to be the American branch of the French order of the Sisters of Charity. It was the first Roman Catholic religious order founded in the United States. Its beginnings were heroic: the poverty of the women and St. Elizabeth's two sons forced them to subsist on a largely vegetarian diet; their first residence was ramshackle and their second, flea-ridden.

St. Elizabeth's trials only continued. Over the next eleven years two of her three daughters and both her sisters-in-law died. Her sons grew up to be worldly men (although one later reformed his life). From her letters we know the anguish and dryness of spirit St. Elizabeth felt, but she never let this stop her work or worship.

In 1821, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton died of tuberculosis. At the time of her death, "Mother Seton" had founded two parochial schools (the first in the U.S.), two orphanages (the first in the U.S.), and a hospital. Her daughter Catherine became Mother Superior of the Sisters of Mercy in New York City. One of her grandsons became a Roman Catholic priest and archbishop. One of her nephews converted to Roman Catholicism, became a priest and later Archbishop of Baltimore. This nephew founded Seton Hall University in New Jersey, which he named in honor of his saintly aunt. 

The many "firsts" for which St. Elizabeth is responsible demonstrate that she was a true pioneer of Roman Catholicism in the United States.  She is also the first American-born Roman Catholic canonized as a saint.

St. Alexis was born in 1854 in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and he was raised and ordained in the Uniate Catholic faith.  The Uniate Church is a Catholic Church in communion with Rome, but which uses the Byzantine (Eastern) rite in its religious services, not the Latin rite like Roman Catholics of the time.  Also, Uniate clergy could be married (as their Orthodox brothers could be).  

Blessed with a tremendous intellect, St. Alexis spoke several languages fluently and could read Greek. Nevertheless, St. Alexis' religious life began with every indication it would be uneventful. He was assistant pastor at a Uniate parish and he had a wife and child. However, the first dramatic event in his eventful life was tragic: Soon after his ordination, his wife and child died. 

St. Alexis' sought to fill the void of his lost family through scholarship and service. Besides his pastoral work, he directed an orphanage and taught Church history and canon law at a seminary.  He also served as secretary to his bishop and was administrator of the diocese. All of this experience was to serve St. Alexis in the great task the Lord had for him in the New World. 

In 1889, St. Alexis' bishop appointed him pastor of a Uniate parish in Minneapolis, Minnesota — a city half-way around the world from where St. Alexis' was. St. Alexis set off for the United States.

As a pastor of a church in communion with Rome, St. Alexis presented his credentials to the Roman Catholic bishop of the area, Archbishop John Ireland, in St. Paul, Minnesota. To St. Alexis' surprise, Archbishop Ireland angrily rejected his credentials. Ireland believed all Roman Catholic immigrants should be assimilated into American society and united by one Catholic rite: Latin. St. Alexis' Uniate church therefore did not fit Archbishop Ireland's vision for his diocese or his country.  Archbishop Ireland went so far as to forbid his diocesan members from attending St. Alexis' services or to receive the sacraments from him. Ireland and other U.S. Roman Catholic bishops even asked the Pope to recall all Uniate bishops from America. 

St. Alexis conferred with other Uniate priests in America, who faced similar opposition. They sought the intercession of their Uniate bishops in Europe, but to no avail. Faced with such opposition from Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S., St. Alexis expected to be deported. He suggested to his parishioners that to avoid trouble for the parish the best course might be for him to return to Europe. 

However, the members of his Minneapolis parish, St. Mary's, were inspired with another idea: they should unite themselves to a Church that would welcome them — the Russian Orthodox Church. Having studied and taught Church history, St. Alexis knew Orthodoxy well. He had an epiphany from his parishioners' longing for a Church to embrace and nurture them. Through the Russian Orthodox bishop of San Francisco, St. Alexis arranged for the admission of his parish and more than 300 souls into the ancient Orthodox faith.

For sometime after, St. Alexis received no salary from the Russian Orthodox Church. Since his parishioners were too poor to support him or the operation of the parish, he had started and run a grocery store, doing all the baking himself. From his income he paid the expenses of the church, helped financially in the building of churches and training of seminarians, and aided the poor.

St. Alexis' preaching won converts to Orthodoxy. Contrary to Archbishop Ireland's fears, St. Alexis' helped immigrants to enter American society. He wrote newsletter articles such as "How We Should Live In America", which not only gave moral advice, but stressed the importance of education in the New World. Despite his zeal for Orthodoxy, St. Alexis' also preached tolerance for other religions in this land of religious freedom.

St. Alexis' success in Minnesota was noticed by the Russian Orthodox bishops in America, who asked St. Alexis to talk about Orthodoxy to Uniate communities in the Eastern U.S. and Canada. St. Alexis' speeches and homilies inspired people to examine their faith and act on it — not out of habit, custom, or fear — but out of love and knowledge of Scripture. Through his ability to speak several languages, his eloquence, and his inspired arguments, he moved entire Uniate parishes to become Orthodox. So dedicated was this humble laborer for Christ that he declined to become bishop.

St. Alexis' success was marred by sad circumstances, however. While St. Alexis was away preaching, a Russian Orthodox priest performed a marriage in his Minneapolis parish and declined payment from the couple. The priest explained that he was salaried by the diocese. While St. Alexis had been supporting the parish with his own money he had practiced the Uniate custom of receiving an honorarium for weddings. His parishioners, thinking St. Alexis had always been salaried, accused him of being a swindler and insisted he leave. St. Alexis left for Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania where one of his recently converted parishes welcomed him as its new pastor. Today, St. Alexis is known as "St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre".

St. Alexis died in 1909 at the age of 55. At the time of his death, he had formed or reformed 17 parishes and over 20,000 Christians into the Orthodox faith. Using the administrative skills he had gained as a young priest in Europe, he merged and streamlined various Orthodox charitable organizations. After his death, these organizations were able to continue St. Alexis' work on earth.

In a Roman Catholic convent in France, St. Thérèse of Lisieux developed the spiritual practice of "the Little Way".  In her short life she gained more wisdom by the grace of God than many long-lived saints.  She recorded her wisdom in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, which her mother superior instructed her to write.

Since her early childhood St. Thérèse's spiritual ambitions were grand.  She wanted to be a priest, a martyr, a missionary, a Crusader "to die on the battlefield in defense of the Church." Most of all, she said, "I have always wanted to become a saint."

Small in build, sickly in health, and emotionally and spiritually frail, St. Thérèse knew she was not capable of the great deeds she imagined. However, she knew that "God would not make me wish for something impossible". In Scripture she sought a way that someone as weak and frail as her could serve Jesus. She found it in Matthew 19:14: "Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me."  From this idea she developed "the Little Way," the daily practice of small deeds performed with love. 

St. Thérèse made "the Little Way" her way of life.  When one nun's fidgeting would interrupt her meditation, "[i]nstead of trying not to hear it — which was impossible — I strove to listen to it carefully as if it were a first-class concert, and my meditation, which was not the prayer of quiet, was spent in offering this concert to Jesus." When another nun's laundry washing would splash the Saint with dirty water, St. Thérèse would position herself to be splashed as a form of mortification.

"Great deeds are forbidden me," she wrote. "I cannot preach the Gospel nor shed my blood — but what does it matter? My brothers [priests and missionaries] toil instead of me and I, a little child, well, I keep close by the throne of God and I love for those who fight. Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Well, I scatter flowers, perfuming the divine Throne with their fragrance... .  [T]hese flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least of actions for love."

St. Thérèse died in 1897 at the age of 24.  The Roman Catholic Church has proclaimed her a "Doctor of the Church".