Commontide
Proper 27
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 23rd Sunday after Trinity
O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Princess of Hungary and Patroness of the Poor
Ecumenical Commemoration
Elizabeth of Hungary was a king's daughter who became landgravine of Thuringia and gave away everything she had to the poor. Married young and widowed at twenty when her husband died on his way to the crusade, she left rank and wealth behind, took up the simplicity of the new Franciscan movement, and spent her last years nursing the sick and the leprous with her own hands in a hospital she built at Marburg. She died worn out at the age of twenty-four, and the church numbered her among the saints only four years later. Her feast is November 18.
Elizabeth was born in 1207, daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary. She was betrothed in infancy to Landgrave Ludwig IV of Thuringia and raised at Wartburg Castle, where she married Ludwig around 1221. By all contemporary accounts the marriage was genuinely loving, and Elizabeth bore three or four children.
When Ludwig departed for the Crusade in 1227, he died of plague en route at Otranto. Elizabeth was expelled from Wartburg Castle by Ludwig's brother Henry — the exact circumstances are disputed, but the depositions of her handmaidens confirm her sudden poverty. Rather than return to her father's court or seek another marriage, Elizabeth placed herself under the spiritual direction of Conrad of Marburg, a severe Franciscan-influenced confessor.
Elizabeth devoted the remainder of her short life to caring for the poor and sick. She founded a hospital at Marburg and worked in it herself, nursing the most afflicted patients. The canonization depositions from her handmaidens Irmgard, Guda, and Elisabeth record that she washed lepers, tended the dying, and gave away her remaining possessions. Conrad's spiritual direction was notably harsh — the depositions record him imposing severe penances and physical discipline — but Elizabeth persisted in her charitable work with characteristic joy.
She died on November 17, 1231, at age 24, exhausted by austerity and labor. Her canonization process (1233-1235) drew on the sworn depositions of her attendants, her confessor Conrad, and numerous witnesses to healing miracles at her tomb. She was canonized by Gregory IX in 1235.
Traditionally, the miracle of the roses is the most famous Elizabeth legend: when her husband Ludwig discovered her carrying bread to the poor and asked what she carried, the bread was miraculously transformed into roses. Additional traditions include various healing miracles attested in the canonization proceedings and stories of Elizabeth's supernatural foreknowledge of Ludwig's death.