July 31: Where Ottawanta Prayed

Welcome to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Today is July 31st, and our story is Where Atawanta Prayed. It may be nothing more than a legend. No one knows for sure. But for centuries, Catholics in Maryland spoke of Our Lady of the Fields.

As the story goes, in 1642, the Jesuit priest, Father Andrew White, brought a Piscataway chief and his family to the Catholic faith. Persecuted by other tribes for their beliefs, the chief, Attawanta, moved his family north, near modern-day Emmitsburg.

Decades passed. One family member after another died. Eventually, the Black Robes, as the Indians called the Jesuits, stopped coming. But Chief Attawanta lived on, clinging to his faith and praying the rosary daily, just as the Black Robes taught him. One day, Attawanta knelt in prayer near his children's graves. As always, his beads were with him.

Suddenly, a lady in white appeared and spoke to him, saying, Know that in these fields, where you have for so many years prayed to me, there shall one day gather many virgins who will sound the praises of God.

Legend or not, just over a century later, near that very place, on July 31, 1809, the future St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and her companions began their life together as Sisters of Charity. In a small stone house, the Sisters of Charity started a school for girls, which eventually grew into a college. They also established their mother house there and formed thousands of young women for religious life. As the church in America grew, those women left Emmitsburg to found America's first Catholic orphanages and hospitals, nurse soldiers on battlefields in the high seas, and travel across the Rockies to teach pioneers' children.

Throughout the 19th century, no religious order was more in demand than Mother Seton's Sisters of Charity. It was the first women's religious order founded in the United States, and six separate communities grew out of it. To this day, near the field where legend says Attawanta prayed, the consecrated women who live in the motherhouse of Seton's order continue to sound the praises of God.

Faith often endures in quiet, unseen ways. Atawanta's devotion demonstrates that perseverance in prayer and belief can influence the future profoundly. The Sisters of Charity built upon this foundation, transforming that legacy into action, education, and service. Consider a personal practice of devotion or service. How might consistent dedication over time influence others and create a lasting legacy? Thank you for listening to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Join us tomorrow, August 1st, for another story of faith and courage in America.