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CONFERENCE OF THE FRANCISCAN FAMILY
WE HAVE COME TO BELIEVE IN LOVE

 LETTER FOR THE EIGHTH CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF SAINT ELIZABETH,
PRINCESS OF HUNGARY, LANDGRAFIN OF THURINGIA AND FRANCISCAN PENITENT

ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY
”An old prayer”

Blessed Elizabeth, vessel elect of exalted virtues, you have shown the world by your example, what the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity are able to do in a Christian soul. You employed all the powers of your heart to love your God alone. You loved Him with a love so pure and fervent, that it rendered you worthy to taste upon earth beforehand those favors and those sweetnesses of Paradise which are communicated to souls invited to the nuptials of the Divine, adorable Lamb of God.

Illuminated by supernatural light, and faith immovable, which showed you to be a true daughter of the holy Gospel, you saw in the person of your neighbor the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, sole object of your affections; and therefore you placed all your delight in conversing with the poor, in serving them, in drying their tears and comforting their spirits, in assisting them with every pious good office in the midst of pestilence, and in the midst of the many miseries to which our human nature is subject.

You made yourself poor in order to assist your neighbor in his poverty; poor in the good things of earth, to enrich thyself with the goods of heaven. You were so humble that, after you had exchanged the throne for a poor hovel, and the royal mantle for the modest habit of St. Francis, you subjected yourself, innocent though you were, to a life of privation and penance, and with holy grace you embraced the cross of your Redeemer, with good will accepting insults and the most unjust persecution; you forgot the world and yourself, to remember God alone.

O most lovable Saint, whom we will dare to call our dear St. Elizabeth, uniting our voices with the voices of so many souls devoted to you; O you are so beloved by God, as you agreed to be the heavenly friend of our souls, and aid them to become friends of your Friend, your loving Jesus. Cast down upon us from the height of heaven one of those tender looks which, when you were on earth, healed the cruelest infirmities of men. In the age in which we live, so full of moral revolutions, and at the same time so cold and so indifferent for the things of God, we have recourse to you with confidence, in order that, borrowing our light from your light, we may rekindle within ourselves the fire of your exalted love, and thus obtain peace of soul.

While we bless the Lord for having glorified His name in this world with the splendor of your heroic virtues, and by the eternal reward granted to them, do you, dear Saint Elizabeth, bless us still from the seat you occupy beside the Saint of saints, protect us in our dangerous pilgrimage, obtain for us by your intercession pardon for our failings, and open to us the way to enter in and share with you the kingdom of God. Amen.

By a Brief of August 9, 1861, his Holiness Pope Pius IX granted - 300 days indulgence to all the faithful who, with contrite hearts and devotion, shall say this prayer to St. Elizabeth of Hungary, in any language, provided the translation be a faithful one. (Old English version modernized by Fred Schaeffer, sfo).