Elizabeth Ann Seton’s story is at the heart of the Church in the United States, and the Eucharist is at the heart of her story. She was born in 1774 in New York where, 200 years later, Cardinal Francis Spellman summed her up this way: “When our great Republic was born, she became a charter American citizen.” He listed Alexander Hamilton and John Jay among her family’s friends and acquaintances. Born Elizabeth Bayley, she married William Seton in an Episcopalian church and gave birth to five children. In 1803 Elizabeth accompanied her husband to Italy, seeking relief for his tuberculosis. William died later that year. It was during their time in Italy that Elizabeth discovered the Catholic faith through the witness of her husband’s business partners, the Filicchis. Soon after she returned to the United States, the quintessential American citizen became a Catholic leader in the young Republic. She entered the Catholic Church in 1805, then moved her family to the United States’ primary see, Baltimore, in 1808, where she took a leading role in founding a Catholic education system. In 1809 she became a professed religious and, with help of Archbishop John Carroll—the cousin of a signer of the Declaration of Independence—she founded the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph.

Br. Andre Bessette called himself St. Joseph's little dog. He was born in Saint-Gregoire d'Iberville Quebec, Canada, August 9, 1845, and raised in a devout French Catholic family. By the time Br. Andre was twelve, both of his parents had died, and he was sent to live and work with relatives. Br. Andre's father was a carpenter like St. Joseph and his mother had a great devotion to St. Joseph which she passed on to little Andre, who was a sickly child. Br. Andre “had already often thought of Saint Joseph watching over the Child Jesus and he had made up his mind to imitate this saintly Workman, for he also was to watch over the Infant God Whom he carried at all times in his soul by divine grace and Whom he received with such deep piety in Holy Communion”.

Antonietta “Nennolina” Meo died of bone cancer at 6 years old in 1937 in Rome. In her few years on earth, however, she lived the Christian life with heroic virtue, as Pope Benedict XVI declared in 2007, when he proclaimed her “Venerable.” Three days later, he said in an audience that she had left all Christians, young and old, “a shining example” that “shows that holiness is for all ages: for children and for young people, for adults and for the elderly.” She “reached the peak of Christian perfection that we are all called to scale; she sped down the ‘highway’ that leads to Jesus.” The highway that leads to Jesus was a Eucharistic life, in which she sought to conform her whole existence to her Lord and God present on the altar.

On the night of July 18, 1830, St. Catherine Labouré was awakened by her Guardian Angel, who said, “Come to chapel; the Blessed Virgin is waiting for you.” The Blessed Virgin Mary told her, “My child, the good God wishes to entrust to you a mission.” The mission that God wanted to entrust to Catherine was made manifest to her on November 27, 1830. It was the mission of making and distributing the Medal of the Immaculate Conception, now known as the Miraculous Medal.