In this inspiring account of a woman's path to sanctity, Sr. Elizabeth Ruth Obbard recreates the atmosphere of 13th century Marburg, and the royal court in which St. Elizabeth lived. The whole of St. Elizabeth's life was characterised by an immense capacity for love - love for her husband who was the local ruler, love for her children and love for the poor.
But throughout her life Elizabeth was consistently misunderstood. Relatives and others at court particularly despised the way in which she gave so much in alms to the poor. Her loving husband always rallied to her defence, however, even when he returned from military campaigns to find that she had emptied the state coffers to feed the beggars of the city.
Her path of love was full of sadness and suffering. She had a very strict confessor who used to beat her and her maidservants for the most trifling offence. But there are touches of humour: when she was first married, she feared that her typical 'newly-wed' enthusiasm for her husband would cause her to neglect her prayers. To remedy this, she arranged for one of her maidservants to pull her foot during the night to waken her (without alerting her husband) so that she would not forget to pray. One night her husband had ended up on her side of the bed, and the maidservant pulled his foot instead!
After her husband's death, Elizabeth identified herself even more closely with the poor, as a Franciscan Tertiary. Other people's suspicions caused her to be temporarily thrown out of the palace and deprived of her children. Yet she continued to embrace suffering.
When eventually she died, having given away all her money and jewels given to buy bread for the poor, she was surrounded by a court not of nobles, but of beggars and orphans. It was then that even those who had despised her in life realised that they had been living in the presence of a saint.
This moving story is illustrated by Sr. Elizabeth's simple drawings (two of which appear on this page), depicting different stages in the saint's life.
St. Elizabeth is the principal patroness of Franciscan Tertiaries.
Poverty: My Riches, by Sr. Elizabeth Ruth Obbard ODC.
106 pages, paperback. ISBN 1 901157 80 6.
£9.95 ; $16.95 in the U.S.A.
Published by The Saint Austin Press.
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