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Also known as: Elizabeth
of Thuringia; Elisabeth of Thuringia; Elisabeth of Hungary
Profile
Princess, the daughter of King Andrew of Hungary. Great-aunt of Saint
Elizabeth of Portugal. She married Prince Louis of Thuringa at age 13.
Built a hospital at the foot of the mountain on which her castle stood;
tended to the sick herself. Her family and courtiers opposed this, but she
insisted she could only follow Christ's teachings, not theirs. Once when
she was taking food to the poor and sick, Prince Louis stopped her and
looked under her mantle to see what she was carrying; the food had been
miraculously changed to roses. Upon Louis' death, Elizabeth sold all that
she had, and worked to support her four children. Her gifts of bread to
the poor, and of a large gift of grain to a famine stricken Germany, led
to her patronage of bakers and related fields.
Born
1207 at Presburg, Hungary
Died
1231 at Marburg; her relics, including her skull wearing a gold crown she
had worn in life, are preserved at the convent of Saint Elizabeth in
Vienna, Austria
Canonized
27 May 1235 by Pope Gregory IX at Perugia, Italy
Patronage
bakers, beggars, brides, charitable societies, charitable workers,
charities, countesses, death of children, exiles, falsely accused people,
hoboes, homeless people, hospitals, in-law problems, lace makers, lace
workers, nursing homes, nursing services, people in exile, people
ridiculed for their piety, Sisters of Mercy, tertiaries, Teutonic Knights,
toothache, tramps, widows
Representation
woman wearing a crown and tending to beggars; woman wearing a crown,
carrying a load of roses in her apron or mantle
Readings
Elizabeth was a lifelong friend of the poor and gave herself entirely to
relieving the hungry. She ordered that one of her castles should be
converted into a hospital in which she gathered many of the weak and
feeble. She generously gave alms to all who were in need, not only in that
place but in all the territories of her husband's empire. She spent all
her own revenue from her husband's four principalities, and finally she
sold her luxurious possessions and rich clothes for the sake of the poor.
Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, Elizabeth went to visit
the sick. She personally cared for those who were particularly repulsive;
to some she gave good, to others clothing; some she carried on her own
shoulders, and performed many other kindly services. Her husband, of happy
memory, gladly approved of these charitable works. Finally, when her
husband died, she sought the highest perfection; filled with tears, she
implored me to let her beg for alms from door to door.
On Good Friday of that year, when the altars had been stripped, she laid
her hands on the altar in a chapel in her own town, where she had
established the Friars Minor, and before witnesses she voluntarily
renounced all worldly display and everything that our Savior in the gospel
advises us to abandon. Even then she saw that she could still be
distracted by the cares and worldly glory which had surrounded her while
her husband was alive. Against my will she followed me to Marburg. Here in
the town she built a hospice where she gathered together the weak and the
feeble. There she attended the most wretched and contemptible at her own
table.
Apart from those active good works, I declare before God that I have
seldom seen a more contemplative woman.
Before her death I heard her confession. When I asked what should be done
about her goods and possessions, she replied that anything which seemed to
be hers belonged to the poor. She asked me to distribute everything except
one worn-out dress in which she wished to be buried. When all this had
been decided, she received the body of our Lord. Afterward, until vespers,
she spoke often of the holiest things she had heard in sermons. Then, she
devoutly commended to God all who were sitting near her, and as if falling
into a gentle sleep, she died.
from a letter by Conrad of Marburg, spiritual director of Saint Elizabeth
of Hungary
source:
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainte01.htm
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