How wonderful is God among his saints: come, let us adore him.
Year: C(I). Psalm week: 1. Liturgical Colour: White.
St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207 - 1231)
She was a daughter of the King of Hungary. At the age of four she was betrothed to Hermann, the eldest son of the Landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia, as part of a grand scheme of alliances against the German Emperor. (A Landgrave is a Count whose status derives directly from a feudal relationship with an emperor and not with any subsidiary nobleman; Thuringia today is a small province in central Germany.)
Shortly after her betrothal Elizabeth went to live at the Thuringian court. Amidst a somewhat riotous court she grew up a very religious child, given to prayer and self-mortification, with her kind mother-in-law protecting her from the more unruly elements at court. Her betrothed, Hermann, died in 1216 and Elizabeth was betrothed to the second son, Ludwig.
In 1221 Ludwig succeeded his father as Landgrave and in the same year Ludwig and Elizabeth were married. The marriage was a happy one and Ludwig willingly supported Elizabeth’s many works of charity. When Thuringia was beset by floods, famine and the plague while Ludwig was away dealing with the affairs of the Empire, Elizabeth took charge of the affairs of the state, distributed alms in all parts of the territory, and built a 28-bed hospital below the castle itself. She visited the hospital every day and also gave daily support to some 900 of the poor.
In 1227 Ludwig died of the plague on the way to a crusade and Elizabeth was left a widow with three children.
Franciscan spirituality was spreading across the world and the Franciscans had made their first settlement in Germany in 1221. With Elizabeth’s help a Franciscan monastery was founded at Eisenach in Thuringia, and she herself lived as close to a Franciscan life as it was possible for her to live, given the significance of her position. By 1228 she was able to distribute her dowry among the poor and enter the Franciscan house she had founded, as one of the first members of the Third Order of St Francis in Germany. She built a new Franciscan hospital at Marburg in 1227. She died in 1231, at the age of 24, worn out by her penances and her charitable labours.
Her husband Ludwig, who benefited so much from her influence and example, is popularly known as “Ludwig the Holy” or “Ludwig the Saint”. Elizabeth herself was canonised by Pope Gregory IX in 1235. She has been described as “the greatest woman of the German Middle Ages.”
Other saints: St Roque González and his companions (-1628)
Brazil
Saint Roque González de Santa Cruz was born in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, on 17 November 1576. He came from a noble Spanish family but also spoke the local language, Guaraní, from an early age.
He was ordained priest at the age of 22 and joined the Jesuits in 1609 to work as a missionary. He was the first European to enter the region that is now the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Delicate diplomacy was required to convince the local Indian leaders that he, as a priest, was not there to prepare the way for European settlement of the land.
From 1613 onwards he founded several of the Jesuit ‘reductions’ which brought Indians together to learn to live in settlements. The ‘reductions’ later became part of Brazil as a result of a territorial exchange between the Spanish and Portuguese empires. Because of the support the ‘reductions’ gave the Indians as against the colonial authorities, they were one of the reasons for the suppression of the Jesuits by the Portuguese Empire in the mid-18th century.
In the region of Iyuí (now in Brazil) he had difficulties with the local chieftain and sorcerer (‘cacique’) Nheçu (Spanish ‘Ñezú’), who had him killed on 15 November 1628, along with his Spanish companions Juan de Castillo and Alfonso Rodríguez.
They were beatified in 1934 and canonized by Pope John Paul II on 16 May 1988.
Liturgical colour: white
White is the colour of heaven. Liturgically, it is used to celebrate feasts of the Lord; Christmas and Easter, the great seasons of the Lord; and the saints. Not that you will always see white in church, because if something more splendid, such as gold, is available, that can and should be used instead. We are, after all, celebrating.
In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.
Mid-morning reading (Terce) | 1 Peter 1:13-14 |
Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do not behave in the way that you liked to before you learnt the truth, but make a habit of obedience.
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Noon reading (Sext) | 1 Peter 1:15-16 |
Be holy in all you do, since it is the Holy One who has called you, and scripture says: Be holy, for I am holy.
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Afternoon reading (None) | James 4:7-8,10 |
Give in to God: resist the devil, and he will run away from you. The nearer you go to God, the nearer he will come to you. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.
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