On January 4, the first full day of retreat, our small group gathered in chapel for morning prayer. It happened to be the feast day of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of the Sisters of Charity and the first native-born American saint, so we prayed from the Proper of the Saints in the Ursuline Book of Prayer. The response was an excerpt from Saint Elizabeth’s writings: “What is distance or separation when our soul, plunged into the ocean of infinity, sees all in God’s own bosom!” Here, Saint Elizabeth invites us to see God’s love as ever-present and ever-lasting, beyond the human confines of space and time. The boundaries and limitations we raise are arbitrary.
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