VEYO Patron Saints

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Born: 1207 at Presburg, Hungary
Died: 1231at Marburg, Germany   
Canonized: 27 May 1235 by Pope Gregory IX
Feast Day: November 17
Patron Saint of: bakers, beggars, brides, charities, charitable societies; charitable workers; death of children; falsely accused people; homeless  people; hospitals; nursing homes; nursing services; people in exile; people ridiculed for their piety and widows.

At age 13 Elizabeth, the daughter of King Andrew of Hungary, was given in marriage to Prince Louis of Thuringia as a result of purely political considerations.

In the spring of 1226, when floods, famine, and the pest wrought havoc in Thuringia, Louis was in Italy on behalf of the emperor. Under these circumstances Elizabeth assumed control of affairs, distributed alms, bread and grain to all parts of the territory of her husband, giving even state robes and ornaments to the poor. In order to care personally for the unfortunate she built below the Wartburg a hospital with twenty-eight beds and visited the inmates daily to attend to their wants; at the same time she aided nine hundred poor daily. It is this period of her life that has preserved Elizabeth's fame to posterity as the gentle and charitable princess of the Wartburg. Many among her courtiers disapproved, but Louis on his return confirmed all she had done.

The next year (1227) he started with the Emperor Frederick II on a crusade to Palestine but died, 11 September of the same year at Otranto, from the pest. The news did not reach Elizabeth until October, just after she had given birth to her third child. On hearing the news Elizabeth, who was only twenty years old, cried out: "The world with all its joys is now dead to me."

After his death, Elizabeth left the court, made arrangements for the care of her children, and in 1228, renounced the world, becoming a tertiary of St. Francis. She built the Franciscan hospital at Marburg and devoted herself to the care of the sick until her death at the age of 24 in 1231.

For more info go to:

• http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/sainte01.htm
• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05389a.htm
• ttp://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=45