By Sister Regina Bechtle, SC 

Two hundred years before Pope Francis wrote his signature encyclical, Laudato Si’, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton marveled at the beauty of creation. She experienced its sights, sounds and scents on Long Island Sound, lower Manhattan’s Battery, Staten Island, New York harbor, the Atlantic Ocean, the Italian cities of Livorno. Pisa and Florence, the trees of Baltimore’s streets and the mountains and valleys of rural Maryland.

Mother Seton held it all – sun, moon, stars, flowers, water, trees, birds and of course, people – in reverence, as the precious gift of a generous Creator.  In the Psalms she found fitting words of praise, thanks and awe.

Her love of creation shaped her prayer:

“Who are we to praise thee – but we call on all thy creation to praise thee!

– the birds of the air, the inhabitants of the Earth, and the depths of the sea,

the mountains and the valleys, and whatever thou hast made, to praise, to bless, to declare thy glory –“