January 4th is the Feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native born American to be canonized by the Catholic Church. Read more about her life here.
Prayer by St. Elizabeth Ann
Our Father, you would not willingly call on us to suffer. You say all things work together for our good if we are faithful to You. Therefore, if You ordain it: through disappointment and poverty, sickness and pain, even shame and contempt and calumny, You will support us with the consolation of Your Grace and compensate us for any temporal suffering by the possession of that peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
The Expectant Mother’s Prayer
O God our Father, through the Blessed Virgin Mary you have glorified motherhood in the virgin birth of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and You have raised up as an example to wives and mothers Your servant, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Grant me, I pray You, the grace to imitate her by accepting as Your charge and as an heir to heaven the child that is to be born of me. Bless, dear Lord, this coming event with safety both to my child and to myself.
I also pray that the noble life of Mother Seton may always be a model to mothers.
The prayer so often on her lips will be always mind. With all my heart I repeat it:
“May the most high, the most just and the most holy Will of God be praised, adored and loved.” Amen.
