(C.D. Stampley Enterprises, Charlotte, NC 2001). Used with permission.

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For in-law problems

St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231)

Feast day: November 17

People who experience trouble with their in-laws invoke St. Elizabeth of Hungary: her in-laws tried to prevent her marriage, mocked for her piety, and drove Elizabeth out of her home after the death of her husband.

Elizabeth was only four years old when her parents, Andrew II and Gertrude, the king and queen of Hungary, betrothed her to an eleven-year-old German prince named Ludwig. After the ceremony, Elizabeth was taken from her home to grow up with her future husband in Wartburg Castle.

Not everyone at Wartburg welcomed the child bride. An uneasy peace existed between Hungary and Germany, and many German nobles did want their prince allied with a Hungarian princess. As the years passed and the date for Elizabeth and Ludwig's marriage drew near, the anti-Hungarian faction became more shrill in its demands that Landgrave Hermann I break off his son's betrothal. But Ludwig refused to give Elizabeth up, the young couple were in love. In 1221, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth and twenty-one-year-old Ludwig were married.

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Elizabeth and Ludwig were happy together, although some of Elizabeth's acts of devotion and charity put a strain on their marriage. Ludwig's mother, Sophia, who was a religious woman herself, often lost patience with Elizabeth's spontaneous gestures of piety. Once, while the family was walking in procession to Mass on the Feast of the Assumption, Elizabeth threw off her gold and pearl crown and prostrated herself in front of a crucifix. "What's wrong? Is your crown too heavy?" Sophia said. "Get up! You look like a tired old mule bent over like that."

Ludwig's sister, Agnes, also found fault with Elizabeth. She was offended by Elizabeth's meekness. "You might as well be a housemaid," Agnes told her.

On at least two occasions, even Ludwig thought Elizabeth had gone too far. Once when Elizabeth was carrying bread in the folds of her gown to give to the hungry, Ludwig confronted her. She opened her gown to show him what she was carrying, and out spilled roses.

On another occasion a member of the court told Ludwig that Elizabeth had brought a dying leper into the castle and was nursing him in their own bed. In a rage, Ludwig hurried to his room and yanked off the blankets. There was indeed a leper stretched out in his bed, but God softened Ludwig's heart so that he saw in the dying man the image of the crucified Savior.

In 1227 Ludwig decided to join Emperor Frederick II on a crusade to the Holy Land. The thought of the separation made Elizabeth sick with grief. They had two children alreadyÑa 5-year-old son Hermann and a three-year-old daughter SophiaÑand Elizabeth was pregnant with their third child.

Ludwig never got to Palestine. On September 11, he died in an epidemic that was raging in the Italian port of Otranto. Word of his death reached Wartburg in October on the day Elizabeth gave birth to a baby girl. She was still recovering from the birth when her mother-in-law came into the room to tell her that Ludwig was gone. In her exhaustion, Elizabeth did not understand what Sophia was saying. She thought Ludwig had been taken prisoner. When at last she understood that he was dead, she cried, "The world is dead to me, and all that was joyous in the world!" For days Elizabeth was unable to control her grief. Servants encountered her in the corridors, leaning against the wall, sobbing.

Now that Ludwig was dead, the faction in court that had always resented Elizabeth made their move. Her brother-in-law, Henry, had been named regent until Elizabeth and Ludwig's son came of age. He told his Elizabeth there was no place for her any longer in Wartburg. To her credit, Sophia protested this cruel expulsion, and followed Elizabeth, weeping, to the door of the castle. But Henry was determined to be rid of his sister-in-law at last. In the middle of winter, Elizabeth, three-year-old Sophia, the infant Gertrude, and two loyal ladies-in-waiting named Irmgard and Isentrud, were driven out of the castle.

At first they had no place to go. For fear of Henry, no one in the town would give them shelter. The refugees spent their first night in an unheated shed. Then Elizabeth's aunt, Matilda the Abbess of Kitzingen, heard of her niece's trouble and invited her to come live at the convent. Over the next few months Elizabeth considered her options. Her uncle, the bishop of Bamberg, was eager to help her find another husband, but Elizabeth and Ludwig had promised each other never to remarry. During Lent Elizabeth made her decision. She left her children in the care of Abbess Matilda. On Good Friday 1228, Elizabeth and her two ladies-in-waiting took vows as Franciscan sisters of the Third Order.

At Marburg Elizabeth built a hospital. There she and her companions dedicated themselves to nursing the sick and the dying. Elizabeth took as her spiritual director Conrad of Marburg, a zealous, ascetical Franciscan priest. It was a poor choice. Elizabeth was spontaneous and generous; Conrad was rigorous and severe. He felt it his duty to bring Elizabeth to a life of strict self-denial. He sent away Elizabeth's two companions and replaced them with two stern, bad tempered women who reported Elizabeth's most insignificant faults to Conrad. He was known to slap Elizabeth across the face, and even beat her with a thick wooden staff. She bore all of this because Ludwig had once mentioned that he believed Conrad to be a truly holy man.

Nonetheless, Elizabeth knew she and Conrad were not suited to each other. To a friend she once compared herself to tall grass and Conrad to a raging stream. "The stream overflows its banks and crushes the grass," she said. "But the water recedes and the grass springs back up again.

Late in 1231, when she was only 24 years old, Elizabeth's health began to fail. On the evening of November 17 she died. Local people who came to pray at her tomb in the hospital chapel reported that miracles was being wrought through Elizabeth's intercession. Conrad, to his credit, took the lead in gathering material for Elizabeth's canonization, but he did not live to see it.

Conrad had accused Count Henry of Sayn of heresy. Henry was cleared of the charge, but Conrad would not accept the verdict. He was on his way to Rome to argue for Henry's condemnation when he was ambushed along the road and murdered, most likely by the count's friends.

Her in-laws built a beautiful church in Marburg and enshrined Elizabeth's relics before the high altar. Her tomb was a goal of pilgrims until 1539 when Elizabeth's descendant, Landgrave Philip, became a Lutheran. He ordered the shrine dismantled and consigned St. Elizabeth's remains in an unmarked grave. To this day, no one knows where her relics are buried.

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