Late last night, I happened on a video of Charlie Kirk talking about ‘loving on the lost,’ and I thought of Elizabeth Ann Seton.

Jesus, release of them that are in captivity, restorer of them that are lost, hope of them that are in exile, strength of them that are weak, refreshment of those who languish and faint, comfort of every sorrowful soul — O Jesus sure joy of my soul, give me but a true love of you. Let me seek you as my only good, my dear, my amiable Jesus.

Late last night, I happened on a video of Charlie Kirk talking about “loving on the lost,” and I thought of Elizabeth Ann Seton. I remembered that the Sisters of Life just mentioned to me that they are having an event dedicated to her this weekend, at her shrine in Lower Manhattan.

The Sisters of Life moved down there fairly recently. It’s their Visitation Mission, the location often of first encounters with women considering abortion. They had a previous location, right by One Police Plaza, and had amazing miracle stories about how women found them. It wasn’t too far from the flagship Planned Parenthood in Manhattan, and I even had some conversations with women and girls about the possibility of being loved on by Catholic nuns who are supernatural kinda mothers.

Now Planned Parenthood is supposed to shut down sometime and the sisters are at a new location, perhaps appropriate given the new challenges of the increased hiddenness of abortion, even as it ever-expands in New York. How fitting it is that the sisters dedicated to the protection of human life in the abortion capital would have a patron in Seton, physically ministering where this great founding mother did.

I’m still utterly stunned by the murder/assassination of Charlie Kirk. We seem drowning in violence and death. Suffocating in evil. “To you . . . O Blessed Jesus, my tender Redeemer, my merciful Lord, I flee for succor,” Seton prayed:

 I acknowledge and adore you as true God. My faith, my hope, and all my desires are fixed on you alone, not as I would indeed — for alas! my faith is imperfect, my hope feeble, my desires still cold and lukewarm, and my heart yet filled with earthly affections. But do strengthen my weakness and supply my defects, inflame my zeal. And where I cannot attain to what I ought, accept what I do for what I would do if I were able. Oh! how plentiful is your goodness. O how transporting sweet is your mercy, dearest Lord Jesus, to every soul that seeks and thirsts after you.

I think the thirst only increases today. As people process what just happened, on top of what happened to Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte and the innocent children at Annunciation, more are going to be looking for God. Yes, why does God allow this? And on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 today, it may again seem He is sleeping. But we need the hope only He can provide. And I pray the more people hear the confidence Kirk had in Jesus and the love with which he looked on those who seemed to hate him, the more they will be drawn into His Heart.

Looking for what that means? I’ve seen and encountered people communicating that they are being called to prayer, even if not quite knowing what it looks like. God will work with the desire in your heart. Find a community though. Online is a start — there were online Rosaries and other prayers, I saw last night. Some in person, too. As Megyn Kelly said, even as she was in the raw early stages of grieving her friend, go to church. Love your family. Remember what matters. Make time for the family meal together. It’s what you’ll be judged on. It’s where you have the most power. In love. In prayer.

And if you are in the New York metropolitan area, plan to head down toward the St. Elizabeth Seton Shrine at 8 State Street on Sunday for Mass, veneration of a Seton relic, and much more. It seems a divinely provided opportunity to choose some peace after way too much violence and senseless, maddening death.

Obviously not everyone will be near New York City this weekend. But you can get in on the inspiration from Elizabeth Ann Seton via the Sisters of Life with a novena of prayer meditations here.

During her canonization Mass on September 14, 1975, Paul VI (yes, him again!) noted “her complete femininity” — that her canonization extols her holiness in all her roles throughout her life: “a wife, a mother, a widow, and a religious.” He said: “May the dynamism and authenticity of her life be an example in our day-and for generations to come-of what women can and must accomplish, in the fulfillment of their role, for the good of humanity.”

Perhaps I’ll see you with the sisters, remembering Sister Elizabeth Ann, praying for a sister in Christ.