Blessed Conchita Wife, Mother, Mystic IV

1. Preparing the Idea, Universal Call to Holiness

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and Concepción Cabrera de Armida (Conchita) uniquely exemplify the Church’s teaching on the universal call to holiness—a message formally proclaimed at the Second Vatican Council but already lived in their life’s generations earlier. Neither woman came from a cloister nor began with spiritual privilege. Both were immersed in the duties of marriage, motherhood, and social upheaval. Yet amid the ordinary rhythms of family life and the extraordinary trials of widowhood, they responded to God’s invitation to holiness not by escaping their circumstances, but by sanctifying them. In doing so, they revealed that the path to sainthood is open not only to priests and religious, but to every baptized soul.

Seton and Conchita each lived out this call in different ways—Elizabeth through her active service, and Conchita through her interior offering. Seton’s life testified to holiness through charitable action: she founded schools, served the poor, and planted the roots of religious life in the fledgling American Church. Her faith transformed the landscape of Catholic education and care. Conchita, while less visible, embraced the mystical path of redemptive suffering, spiritual motherhood, and union with Christ Crucified. Her writings and spiritual insight continue to guide laity and clergy alike, affirming that a laywoman, even without religious vows, can become a spiritual pillar in the life of the Church.

Together, they anticipate and affirm the Council’s teaching that every Christian—regardless of vocation, gender, or status—is called to sanctity. Their lives prove that holiness is not a matter of status, but of surrender. By offering their whole selves to God within the very heart of daily life—whether founding schools or changing diapers, enduring loss or writing in the night—they became radiant examples of grace in action. Seton and Conchita show that sainthood is not reserved for the few but is the destiny of all who love without counting the cost.

Necessary statement to modern world. Church articulate something when its misunderstood. Modernism, men of the enlightenment sanctity not attainable. Not interested in sanctity without grace, certain meant were hedonist. Church 1960s, losing reality all men called to holiness, respoken in new voice. Name it, from God a call of universal grace, final end, union with Him, forever.

Church has always taught salvation for but needs to speaker more clearly.

1. 3 prominent quotes on the idea of universal call to holiness spanning time


2. St. Gregory of Nyssa (4th century):
   
   “The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.”
   
   (De Vita Moysi)

This early Church Father emphasized that every Christian is called to spiritual ascent—not just monks or mystics, but all who seek God in earnest.

1. St. Francis de Sales (17th century):
   
   “It is an error, or rather a heresy, to say devotion is incompatible with the life of a soldier, a tradesman, a prince, or a married woman… Wherever we may be, we can and should aspire to the perfect life.”
   
   (Introduction to the Devout Life)

Writing for laypeople, St. Francis shattered the idea that holiness belonged only to cloisters or altars, insisting it was possible in every state of life.

1. Second Vatican Council (1965):
   
   “All the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity.”
   
   (Lumen Gentium, §40)

This defining statement of the modern Church affirms that the call to holiness is not optional or selective—it is the baptismal vocation of every Christian.

Aware that God because loves in a particular love, has only one aspiration achieve our end, live in Him, become holy, called to saints. Don’t aim for purgatory, might miss.

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