REAL AND ACTIVE LOVE

Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

1 Jn 3:14-18

Born in 1207, Elizabeth was the beautiful daughter of King Andrew of Hungary. At a very young age, she married Louis of Thuringia and had three children. Her husband, a good man himself, however died in one of the crusades. Thereupon, her brother-in-law evicted her and her children from the castle. After securing provision for her children, she renounced everything she had and joined the Third Order of St. Francis.

Elizabeth is remembered for her lifelong friendship with the poor and care for the hungry. She had one of her castles converted into a hospital in which she herself attended to the sick. She gave generously to the needy in all the territories of her husband’s empire. According to the testimony given by her spiritual director, Conrad of Marburg, Elizabeth would go twice a day to visit the sick and personally served those who were particularly repulsive. In a hospice she built in Marburg herself attended the most wretched and contemptible at her own table.

At her deathbed, after receiving the last sacraments, when asked what should be done with whatever goods and possessions that remained in her name, she replied that whatever that seemed to belong to her belonged to the poor. Thus, except one worn out dress for her burial, she requested that all her properties be distributed to the poor. Then as if falling into a gentle sleep, Elizabeth, at the age of 24 years old only, passed away in Marburg in the year 1231.

The life of Elizabeth of Hungary was a shining example of what the Apostle John says in the First Reading of today’s Mass in her blessed memory: “My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active.” Elizabeth’s love for the poor, the sick, and the needy was actual and true. Today, her kind of love continues to challenge the love we profess for the least, the last, and the lost. Elizabeth is an inspiration to us to love not only in word but, most especially, in deed.

However, we do not have to be kings and queens, princes and princesses, powerful and mighty, for our love to be actual and real. It was not her royal status that made Elizabeth’s love active and true; rather, it was her heart ever loyal to Christ.