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St. Elizabeth of Portugal

July 4th, reminder
Position: queen, TOR
Death: 1336
Patron: Portugal, Coimbra, and Zaragoza; various women’s associations; charity workers; invoked in marital difficulties and false accusations; helper in wartime hardships
Attributes: crown, rose, nun, beggar
CURRICULUM VITAE

She came from the Spanish royal family. At the age of 12, she was married to the Portuguese King Dionysius, with whom she had two children and by whose side she experienced much suffering, not only because of his infidelity. She excelled in patience, love, the ability to forgive and reconcile. She lived with love for the poor with many works of mercy and settled disagreements in the country. During a terrible plague, she was a refuge for the general public. After the death of her husband, she became a tertiary, continued her charity work and finally died at the age of 65 as a sister of St. Clare.
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ANGEL OF PEACE
She was born in Spain around 1270-1271 as the daughter of the later King Peter III of Aragon and his wife Princess Constance of Sicily. At baptism, she was given the name of her deceased aunt, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. In Spanish, she is often called Isabella. Her birth is said to have contributed to the reconciliation of Peter with his father, James I. Elizabeth stayed with him before his death, when she was about five or six years old. She then returned to her parents, who provided her with an education by good teachers. She had three brothers: Alfonso, who reigned after her father, James and Ferdinand, and a sister, Yolanda. Already in her childhood, Elizabeth was distinguished by extraordinary piety and interests in charity.

Before she was 12 years old, her marriage to the young Portuguese king Dionysius, who had reigned since 1279, was arranged. She is said to have married him in 1282. She considered her royal rank and wealth to be entrusted hryvnias and tried to use them for works of Christian mercy. She became a mother of the poor, a comforter of the suffering, a nurse of the lonely sick and a protector of the persecuted. She helped impoverished families and orphans. Later, she established a home for women who had gone astray and a foundling for abandoned infants.

In her private life, she had a certain order, especially when it came to spiritual activities. She also prayed the church hours and regularly attended Holy Mass. In her daily schedule, she remembered those who needed her help. On more than one occasion, the sick were healed under her touch. For example, a woman full of unsightly ulcers suddenly disappeared. On Thursday, Mandy washed the feet of beggars and kissed the feet of a sick woman, who immediately recovered. She was also detained by her husband when she had alms ready in her apron, and he asked her what she was carrying. The queen replied with a smile: “roses”, thinking that God liked them as a symbol of love. Her husband immediately checked the contents of the apron, because it was not the time for roses, but they suddenly really were in it, her biographies state.

King Dionysius was said to have been originally good and only later became reckless. He was often unfaithful to his wife, kept two concubines at court and had illegitimate children with them, whom his good wife took care of. In solitude, she grieved greatly and wept over her husband’s sins, but did not complain about him to people. She treated him kindly and forgave him for his infidelity and unkind behavior. She often prayed and fasted for him so that he would convert.

With him she had a son, Alfonso, to whom the succession belonged, and a daughter, Constance, who married Ferdinand IV, King of Castile.

Biographies of Elizabeth tell of an incident involving her squire, whom she had entrusted with distributing alms to the poor. Another of the king’s servants noticed the queen’s private conversations and accused the squire of being unfaithful to him. The king plotted to have Elizabeth’s squire burned to death in a lime kiln. He allegedly ordered the keeper of the lime kiln to throw any man who came in the morning with the question of whether the king’s order had been carried out into the kiln. The king sent the squire to the lime kiln with this question in the morning, but he stopped at the church for a short prayer. Holy Mass was about to begin and they needed an altar boy, so the squire was persuaded. The impatient king wanted to be sure and sent the accuser to find out how his order had been carried out. He arrived before the squire and barely asked whether the king’s order had been carried out before he found himself in the kiln. The squire then received a positive answer and returned unharmed. The king was later convinced of his wife’s innocence and behaved better from then on. He saw God’s judgment in the incident.

In later years, the queen repeatedly made efforts to bring about peace in the disputes that shook the Portuguese kingdom.

In the last years of King Dionysius, the queen clung to her son Alfonso, and the aging king was more inclined to one of his illegitimate sons, Sancho. This gave rise to suspicions that the king wanted to hand over the throne to Sancho, against the laws and rights of the land. Alfonso, who had married Beatrice, began to rule with her in Coimbra. Dionysius’s advisors urged the king to limit his son’s power, and his son was in turn urged by his friends to rebel against his father, who wanted to deprive him of his succession.

Elizabeth tried to beg for a gift of reconciliation from both of them, but the situation escalated to the point that the king decided to raise an army against his son Alfonso and marched with him to the city of Sintra to capture him. Elizabeth sent messengers to her son with a warning that he should flee. The king found out about this and, on the advice of bad advisors, dismissed his wife and deprived her of all her pensions. She bore it patiently, but not her friends. They grumbled with reproaches against the king that he was at war with his son and had banished his wife. This perhaps led to him at least accepting her back.

The enmity between father and son was once again exacerbated by the siege of his father’s army at Coimbra. Elizabeth visited her husband and son in their camp and only managed to achieve a four-day truce. She prayed, cried and begged for a cessation of war, which she finally succeeded in doing. Soon after, the feud over Sanches recurred, and the queen made great efforts to reconcile the two armies at Lisbon and averted a second bloody clash. Father and son separated. Not long after, Dionysius fell seriously ill, and the queen proved her generous and kind heart not only by caring for his physical needs, but also by reconciling with her son, who, at her request, came to apologize to his father.

The king died penitently in 1325. The words of Scripture proved true that “an unbelieving man is sanctified by marriage to a believing woman” (1 Cor 7:14) . Elizabeth even made a barefoot penitential pilgrimage to Compostela, to the tomb of the Apostle James on his behalf, but perhaps in the tertiary habit. There, as a votive offering, she handed over her crown and royal jewels to the bishop.

In Lisbon, she built the first shrine of the Immaculate Conception in the history of the Church.

In Coimbra she decided to enter the convent of the Order of St. Clare, the construction of which she had just finished. However, she was persuaded to continue living in the world, where she was greatly needed. Elizabeth therefore settled in a dwelling attached to the convent, lived the life of a tertiary and did much good. She used her widow’s pensions to build churches, hospitals, almshouses and, where necessary, to build bridges.

She proved herself again as a peacemaker when her son Alfonso IV. was about to wage war with her daughter’s husband, King Ferdinand of Castile. Sick with influenza, she set out on a journey to prevent war. In the town of Estremoz on the Castilian border, she managed to secure peace, but in a fever she knew her end was coming. At that time, she is said to have taken her religious vows, and finally died in the arms of her son and daughter-in-law, calling on the heavenly Mother. She was called the “angel of peace” and venerated as a saint from the moment of her death.

She was buried in Coimbra, and her tomb became a place of pilgrimage and a place of extraordinary graces. In 1516 the canonization process began. Leo X then allowed her to be venerated as blessed in Coimbra. In 1612, her tomb was opened, and her body was found intact, with no signs of decomposition. The solemn canonization took place on 25 February 1625 by Pope Urban VIII, who tightened the canonization procedure.

My soul magnifies the Lord › Lk 1.46.

The visit to Elizabeth was sealed with the singing of the Magnificat, a hymn that spans all Christian centuries, a hymn that unites the minds of Christ’s disciples, and that apart from all the historical frictions that we strive to overcome in the interest of full communion. In the current ecumenical climate, it is nice to remember that Martin Luther devoted, as he himself put it, a very famous commentary to this holy song of the blessed Mother of God. In it, he emphasized that everyone should learn this song of praise, because in “the Magnificat, Mary teaches us how to love and praise God”. 

In the moment when God, full of love, looked at Mary, she became a sign of hope for the multitudes of the poor and the least on earth, who will be the first in the kingdom of heaven. It faithfully follows the decision of Christ, who repeats to all the oppressed throughout history: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will strengthen you” (Mt 11:28). Taking the winding paths of history, the Church follows Mary so that the huge processions of poor and hungry, oppressed and afflicted women and men (cf. Lk 1, 52-53) rise again and find their dignity. It is the star of the third millennium, just as at the beginning of the Christian era it was the morning dawn with which Jesus shone on the horizon of history. She—thinking chronologically—was born before Christ, gave him to the world, and incorporated him into human destinies. We ask Mary to lead us to Christ and the Father in the future—even in the dark night of evil and in times of confusion and crises, silence, and suffering. 

Let us sing to Mary the hymn that the Eastern Church loves above all else. The Baathist lyrically glorifies Mary. In the section devoted to Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, he celebrates Mary as a branch of the never-drying trunk, as the life force of the immortal fruit, as the one who nourished the one who nourishes us.

June 30, non-binding commemoration
Position: martyrs
Death: 64
CURRICULUM VITAE

They were men, women, and youth, clergy and laity, many of whom had accepted the faith very early on. They fell in large numbers during the first of many persecutions of Christians. When a large part of Rome burned down, which, according to the historian Tacitus, was set on fire by Nero, the emperor cast suspicion on the Christians and declared them arsonists. The people considered the killing of Christians a reason for entertainment. In addition to Tacitus, Seutonius, for example, speaks of this among the pagans, and Clement of Rome among the Christian writers.
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REPRESENTATIONS OF NAMELESS WITNESSES
They were believers united by love for Christ, people who had love for all others in their hearts but were regarded by the majority of the people of Rome as their greatest enemies. Hosts of nameless witnesses to the truth had to die.

In the year 64, a diabolical plan ripened in the proud heart of Emperor Nero. He wanted to see a great fire in Rome to represent the burning of Troy. He wanted to be the master of everything and be celebrated as a great builder. At that time, there were more and more people in the city with a “dangerous” faith, which, in its teachings, proclaimed the equality of all people, so, according to them, the emperor should be the brother of an enslaved person, and an enslaved person equal to his sovereign. Their “deviation” is completed by the fact that they see God in someone who was crucified as an enslaved person. The emperor praised himself for the idea he had. How “magnificent!” Since the people would hate the arsonists, whom he had decided to label Christians, he would be able to get rid of them in such a way that all his desires would be satisfied and he would be celebrated.

After the fire of Rome, Emperor Nero began a cruel persecution of the first Christians, and fantastic tortures were invented for them, as the Roman historian Tacitus wrote. The imperial gardens were specially illuminated by live torches that burned Christians in pitch-blackened rags on columns and crosses. Some Christians were sewn into animal skins and thrown to wild dogs to be slowly torn apart. Bloody theaters took place in the circus on the Vatican Hill, during which wild beasts were unleashed on children and women, cruel whippings were performed, and there was no shortage of beheadings. The largest number of Christians were tortured in various ways there.

They suffered and died with unwavering faith and hope for life in heaven and with a love for Jesus from which they drew strength. The apostle Paul wrote, as it were, in their name, recalling the prophetic words of Psalm 44:23: “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are like sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things—persecution, tribulation, and sword— we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death… nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:36-39).

The Lord Jesus foretold the persecution and suffering of those who would follow him, saying, “Brother will betray brother to death… All will hate you for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:21-22) The Lord Jesus Himself had already blessed these persecuted ones in advance with an encouraging addition: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:12).

Martyrdom is the highest degree of love. Many pagans, seeing the enthusiasm of Christians and their courage in the most painful tortures, cried out for baptism. And so the Church grew the more it was persecuted. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of new Christians. Since the names of all the first Roman martyrs are not known to many, the Church commemorates their heroic deaths with a common feast immediately after those of the two foremost apostles, who were also executed under the emperor Nero.

Between the current cemetery and St. Peter’s Basilica, a stone in the pavement marks the place where, in the middle of the circus, where most of the first martyrs died, an obelisk once stood, which was later transferred to St. Peter’s Square in 1586.

Dear parishioners, We contemplate the holy images and statues placed in churches. In many parishes, on the altar in the presbytery, we see the Apostles standing: Saints Peter and Paul. St. Peter holds the keys in his hands, and St. Paul a sword. Large monuments of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul stand on the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Today we commemorate their martyrdom. Some apocryphal books state that both died on the same day, June 29, 67, by order of the cruel emperor Nero. St. Peter was crucified upside down in the Vatican Gardens, and St. Paul was beheaded with a sword behind the Ostia Gate. St. Peter was led to his death during the time of Herod Agrippa I. This king wanted to please the Jews and began the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem. He preached the beheading of St. James the Elder, the apostle, and then captured Peter and imprisoned him. He wanted to hand him over to the people after the Passover feast. In the meantime, the chained Peter was guarded by four mercenaries from each squad. 

However, the prayer constantly recited by Christians at that time proved stronger than the chains. It did not help that Peter was sleeping between two soldiers and that the guards at the gate were guarding the prison. An Angel of the Lord came and struck him on the side, waking Peter up. He also said to him, “Get up quickly!” The chains fell from Peter’s hands. The angel ordered him to gird himself, put on sandals, and put on his cloak. He led Peter out of prison and only then left him when they had passed through the iron gate and one street together. Certainly, St. Peter remained faithful and therefore still stands guard over Christ’s sheepfold with the keys in his hands. He stands faithfully still in his successors. However, from the very meeting with Peter, Jesus placed the Apostle in a strong position. He changed his name. He called him a rock. Later, in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus explains to Peter what the change of name meant: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Peter was given the greatest power in the Church.  

The second most significant patron of the Church is St. Paul the Apostle. He was also placed high in the Church by Jesus himself. The risen Christ blocked the way for Saul of Tarsus when he was filled with hatred against the confessors of Christ and went to Damascus to imprison and kill them. At the gates of that city, Christ appeared to him, struck him with light, and by His grace caused him to convert. Saul rose from the ground and was led by his companions to the priest Ananias, where he was baptized. Paul was called to be the apostle to the Gentiles and a remarkable teacher of humanity. He was to work very diligently and suffer a lot for Christ and bring to Him, at the cost of proclaiming the word of God and a great sacrifice, crowds of Gentiles. “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that through me the proclamation of the Gospel might be fully accomplished and all the nations might hear it,” wrote St. Paul in his Second Letter to his dearest Timothy.

Brothers and sisters, we are called to listen! We would all like to believe similarly. The Holy Apostles have much to tell us in times of instability and betrayal, as we consider them. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” – confessed St. Peter when the Lord Jesus asked his disciples who people considered Him to be. It was an act of true faith that Peter dared to do, thanks to the grace given to him from above, by God the Father. St. Paul also believed completely in Christ. “I know whom I have believed” – he said about himself. This gave him confidence in the face of the brutality of life, which often appeared to him, even before death. Let us therefore stand resolutely with Christ, as they did. Peter was a rock, but when he once forgot his fear of Jesus and denied Him, and confirmed his denial with an oath, he had to erase his guilt with bitter tears. 

Paul, despite his great constancy and heroism of love, still felt like a weak man and therefore strengthened himself in the conviction that if he could do everything good, then only in the One who strengthens Him, in Jesus Christ. Our constancy in faith is the fruit of constant prayer to Christ for the grace of constancy and perseverance. Today’s world is treacherous. Betrayal of God, betrayal of homeland, betrayal of ideals, betrayal of faith, betrayal of the Church, marital betrayal, betrayal of a friend, betrayal of one’s own identity, and constant betrayal. We need fidelity very much today. We want to learn it from the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and we also want to remain faithful to them ourselves, at all costs. The greater the fidelity in the Church, the fuller is our bond with God, who is faithful to us until the end. 

The patrons of today stand guard over the Church, which is the visible sign of the invisible Lord God. The preface in the Church speaks of the twofold mission of Saints Peter and Paul: “For you fill us with joy from the apostolic work of Saints Peter and Paul. One teaches us to profess the faith, and the other explains its mysteries to us; Peter gathered the early Church from the children of Israel, Paul became a teacher of the faith for all nations, and so both, although in different ways, gathered the family of Christ. We venerate them together, as you glorified both together.” Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us that we may be free from all betrayal and value the virtue of fidelity.

June 27, non-binding commemoration
Position: patriarch, teacher of the church
Death: 444
Attributes: doves, Virgin Mary
CURRICULUM VITAE

After receiving his education, he went to the monks in the desert to learn from them the true virtuous life. He then became the patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt. He led a doctrinal dispute with the Church in Constantinople, where the heretical Patriarch Nestorius denied Mary as the Mother of God. Cyril was a fearless defender of the belief in Mary’s divine motherhood. In 431, he presided over the Council of Ephesus, where he played a major role in condemning the Nestorian heresy. Through his writings, he became one of the greatest theologians and exegetes of the East.
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THE ADVOCATES OF THE MOTHER OF GOD
He was born around 370 in Alexandria, Egypt. Biographers believe, based on his work, that he received a remarkable education. He decided to enter the spiritual life and went to the desert, where he became a monk. In his efforts to live a virtuous life, he struggled with a violent temperament that probably accompanied him throughout his life.

In 403, already as a priest, he accompanied his uncle Theophilus, who was the Patriarch of Alexandria, to the Synod “At the Oak,” which wrongly condemned St. John Chrysostom to exile. Cyril only realized his mistake after his uncle’s death. In 412, he succeeded him as Patriarch of Alexandria. He tried to resolve the tensions in the Church, which various theological discussions had caused and which sectarians and hostile Jews had also instigated. Cyril’s power was greater than that of his predecessor; in particular, he also had some temporal authority. With his temperamental zeal, Cyril sometimes rushed.

After an argument over the theater they went to on Saturday, where they instigated the arrest of Cyril’s friend Hierax, the Jews began to attack the Christians. Cyril warned the Jewish leaders, but their co-religionists prepared a bloody attack, which they began at night with an alarm call that the Alexandrian temple was burning. They attacked the gathering Christians with swords. Patriarch Cyril first wanted the prefect to intervene, but he was not in favor of him and hesitated. Cyril then took care of the expulsion of the Jews from Alexandria. This act increased the hostile attitude of the prefect Orestes. Both wrote to Emperor Theodosius II. The emperor sided with Cyril and forbade Jews from living in the city.

Cyril solved other problems by having the churches of the Novatian sect closed and not wanting them in the city.

Cyril’s energetic actions emboldened some revolutionary monks of Mount Nitris to deplorable riots. In 415, they attacked the prefect’s chariot with insults. One monk hit the prefect with a stone, was imprisoned for it, and died under torture. The philosopher Hypatia had negotiated with Orestes and was therefore accused of preventing the bishop’s reconciliation with the prefect. Her accusers attacked and tortured her. These crimes tarnished Cyril’s and the Alexandrian church’s reputations.

The Jews then tied a Christian to a cross and beat him until he died under torture. Patriarch Cyril resolved the situation by writing to the emperor, who had the perpetrator punished and Orestes deposed.

Cyril tried to act as best he could, but it was difficult, and he was sometimes unsuccessful. He preached a lot and tried to establish peace in Alexandria. He was a relentless fighter against heresy. In 429, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestor, particularly provoked him toward such activities. He began to proclaim that the Virgin Mary was not the Mother of God, as it was customary to call her in the East, but only the Mother of Christ. According to him, she gave birth only to a man, and God the Word united with the man Jesus and dwelt in him, as in a temple.

When Cyril learned of these claims, he wrote many letters to Nestor, bishops, and monks in which he refuted this doctrine. Nestor then began to slander him at the imperial court, and Cyril therefore wrote apologetic letters directly to Emperor Theodosius II. He also turned to Pope Celestine to decide the dispute. The pope convened a synod in Rome in 430, which recognized the orthodoxy of Cyril’s teachings and called on Nestor to recant his errors. Cyril, on behalf of the synod, ensured that its decision was implemented. He compiled twelve doctrinal articles, the so-called anathemas, and requested that Nestor publicly accept them. He refused to agree to them, and therefore a general council was convened in Ephesus in 431, presided over by Cyril. The pope’s envoys were late, and a group of bishops from the Patriarchate of Antioch, led by John, who allegedly sought neutrality in the dispute while supporting Nestorius, also arrived late.

The bishops at the council condemned Nestorius’ teachings, the papal legates approved the decision, but the Antiochians then held their own meeting. At it, they condemned Cyril and the Ephesian bishop Memnon. The emperor’s soldiers then imprisoned Cyril. However, the emperor ultimately agreed with the council’s decision, released Cyril, and deposed Nestorius. Only after two years did reconciliation between the two sides, Cyril and John, take place, when both retreated from their extreme positions.

Cyril of Alexandria stood out primarily as a theologian who wrote extensively. Even before the dispute with Nestorius, he was concerned with the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. He based his work on the teachings of the Church Fathers and the Holy Scriptures. The most important of the five groups of writings was the doctrinal-polemical works and sermons, in which he deepened the doctrine of the aforementioned mysteries. Other groups are: Interpretations of Holy Scripture, defense of Christians against the slanders of Julian the Apostate, sermons, and letters.

In addition to his pastoral work, Cyril devoted the last years of his life to theological writings. He endeavored to explain theological concepts more thoroughly to prevent further misunderstandings.

In 1883, Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church.

Only those who do the will of my Father in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven, even if they say to me, “Lord, Lord” (Mt 7:21).

Feelings or mere words are not enough for salvation. God requires of us actions of faith. This means that as a person’s mindset is, so should his words and actions be. God’s rule cannot be acknowledged with empty words alone. To accept it means to subscribe to it with one’s heart, mouth, and actions.

The large and majestic head of Christ is said to be depicted on the facade of the ancient temple in Lubeck. One can see sadness on his face. His eyes speak of silent grief. And below, under the image, there is a significant inscription:

“You call me master, and you do not ask me.
You call me light, and you do not see me.
You call me a liar, yet you do not believe me. You call
I tell you the way, and you do not follow me.
You call me life, and you do not ask me.
You call me wisdom, and you do not listen to me.
You call me rich, and you do not ask me.
You call me righteous, and you do not fear me.
And when I condemn you, do not be surprised at me.”

These are painful reproaches that Christ addresses to everyone, words that awaken conscience.