The Traveling Catholic

The Traveling Catholic

Monday, July 7, 2014

The Mother Seton House and St. Mary's Spiritual Center, Baltimore

While we were on vacation in May we visited the Mother Seton House and the St. Mary's Spiritual Center in Baltimore, MD. 

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton lived in the house for a year (June 1808-June 1809) after she relocated from New York.  She left to found the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph's and the house was then maintained by the Sulpician Fathers whose seminary was next door.  It was rarely used and fell into disrepair.  Eventually, it was restored by many volunteers and is now back under the care of the Sulpicians.  We took a tour of the house.  Here are some pictures from that tour.


The original key...

Most of what is in the house is time period replicas, but there are two items that were St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's:  The framed picture of Jesus and the traveling chest shown below.

This was Mother Seton's sleeping alcove...

This was the upstairs room where the girls she taught stayed.
This was their "school room"...
another living room/school room...

The Mother Seton statue outside....



On the same property is the St. Mary's Spiritual Center.  The property used to be a seminary.  I don't think it is anymore, but it is still maintained by the Sulpicians.  The chapel there is very beautiful.  There's an upper chapel and a lower chapel.
Here are some pictures of the upper chapel...





This was the lower chapel.  It's basically beneath the upper one.
This is actually the chapel where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton took her first vows.
It was very small and simple.
The tour of the grounds was very interesting and the tour guide was very nice. 
If you want to know more about it you can visit their website here
There is much more information on their site.