What is a Saint?
In the Catholic Church, the saints are ordinary people like you and me who made it to heaven. They’ve done nothing that you and I cannot do, if we persevere in following Jesus Christ and living our lives according to His teaching.
Catholic devotion to the saints is nothing more than respect and admiration for the memory of the deceased heroes of the Church. We honor them as men and women of heroic virtue who can serve as our role models. They were no more perfect than are we; but, at the end of their lives – and hopefully, ours – they received from Our Lord his words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
We also ask the saints to intercede for us. Have you ever asked anyone to pray for you when you were having a hard time? That is how Catholics “pray to” the saints – we pray with saints, not to them. As the Letter of James says, “The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.”
Well-known saints like those below often are remembered in a special way on particular days during the year.
January – February – March – April – May – June
July – August – September – October – November – December
This Weeks Saints
November 16
St. Margaret of Scotland
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November 17
St. Elizabeth of Hungary
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November 18
St. Rose Philippine Duchesne
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November 19
St. Pontianus
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November 20
St. Felix of Valois
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November 21
Presentation of Mary
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November 22
St Cecilia
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“We are made loveless by our possessions.”
— St. Elizabeth of Hungary
November 17
St. Elizabeth of Hungary
St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a 13th century princess, betrothed in infancy to Ludwig of Thuringia. Married to him in 1221, she nevertheless led an austere and simple life, building a hospital at the foot of the mountain on which her castle stood, tending to its sick personally.
She performed all types of charitable acts; she put herself at the service of widows, orphans, the sick, the needy. During a famine she generously distributed all the grain from her stocks, cared for lepers in one of the hospitals she established, kissed their hands and feet. For the benefit of the indigent she provided suitable lodging.
She took food to many of the poorest in the surrounding town, on a daily basis. Once when she was taking food to the poor and sick, Prince Ludwig stopped her and looked under her mantle to see what she was carrying; the food had been miraculously changed to roses.
Upon Ludwig’s death on crusade in 1227, her husband’s enemies hounded her out of the country, seizing the goods that were her due as a widow,. She was forced into the winter cold with her three children, one a baby. Fear of her enemies kept people from aiding her. She eventually found shelter in a pig sty. In 1228, after the return of Ludwig’s allies, she made arrangements for her children and renounced the throne to become a Third Order Franciscan. She lived in a mud hut and saw to all of her meager needs by spinning. She died at the age of 24.