St. Elizabeth of Hungary
Born: July 7, 1207
Died: November 17, 1231
Feast Day: November 17
Patron of: Bakers, death of children, falsely accused, homeless people
If your mother-in-law has ever compared you to a jackass, then you know how Saint Elizabeth of Hungary felt. As if feeding the hungry and caring for the sick wasn't enough to qualify her for sainthood, Elizabeth also had to put up with a backbiting mother-in-law.
Born in 1207 to the King of Hungary, Elizabeth was betrothed in infancy to Ludwig of Thuringia; at 4 years old she was sent to live with him and his family. They were married when she was 14.
To be honest, Elizabeth made an unconventional sort of queen. You can see how the more rigid members of the court might have found her difficult to live with. For starters, the queen refused to wear a crown, protesting that Jesus wore only a crown of thorns. She prostrated herself before the crucifix, causing her husband's mother, Sophia, to call her a "tired old mule.She gave liberal handouts from the royal treasury to feed the poor, which worried the fiscally uptight of the court. And she knew no bounds in her zeal to care for the sick: in a day when leprosy was greatly feared, she built a hospital halfway up the mountain road to the royal castle-much too close for comfort.
One legend tells of Elizabeth bringing home a leper and tucking him into her husband's bed (probably because Ludwig was the only one in the castle who wouldn't have hit the ceiling). When her mother-in-law happened upon the leper, she dragged her son to see for himself what a lunatic he had married. But when the two entered the room, they found themselves looking down on Christ himself in the place of the leper. Ludwig was henceforth convinced he had married a saint. His mother's reaction, thank goodness, has not been preserved for the ages.
When Ludwig was killed in the Crusades, his brother wasted no time in booting Elizabeth and her three children out of the castle. After a frigid night or two out in a pig shed, Elizabeth took shelter with her relatives. She eventually became a third-order Franciscan and spent the years until her death at age 24, building hospitals and caring for the sick and poor. According to Daniel Morris in Beatitude Saints, her reputation led Saint Francis of Assisi, at the request of a friend, to send her his well worn cloak, which became a treasured possession.
Elizabeth is often pictured with an apron full of roses holding a loaf of bread behind her back. The origins of this pose, as explained in my childhood standby, Sixty Saints for Girls, go back to a famine in the country. Because the royal granary held too little corn to feed all the hungry, Ludwig told Elizabeth it would be unjust to give to some and not all. But Elizabeth, knowing that some of the poorest peasants were now literally starving, took matters- and some corn- into her own hands. On her way to deliver it, she had the bad fortune to run into her husband and his mother.
When Sophia asked suspiciously what Elizabeth was carrying in her bundle, she blurted out, "Roses." "In the middle of winter?" sneered Sophia, as she jerked open the bundle. And onto the snow fell a great bunch of roses. Apparently, having a nasty mother-in-law isn't so bad when you have God on your side.
Originally published in Salt magazine, ©Claretian Publications.
Image : Wikimedia Commons
