St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271 – 1336)

From the womb, Elizabeth seemed chosen by God to be a peacemaker. Her birth itself healed a rift between her father King Pedro III of Aragon and her grandfather. Elizabeth had a pious upbringing, regular religious instruction, and a good education. Mass, Eucharist, and the reading the Divine Office formed the backbone of her prayer life, holy habits she continued throughout her life.

Elizabeth was bright and beautiful, and her family well connected. Many men sought Elizabeth’s hand in marriage; her parents decided that twenty-year-old King Dinis of Portugal was the best match for their daughter. At the age of thirteen, the young queen arrived in Portugal to start her new life.

King Dinis was a popular king, known for his hard work and his poetic nature — and for his lax morals. The king sired seven children out of wedlock, while he and Elizabeth had only one son and one daughter. Though deeply hurt by the king’s infidelities and abuses, she did not publicly expose the king for his transgressions. She must have voiced her displeasure privately, however, and prayed fervently for his conversion. The king was clearly aware of the great suffering he caused Elizabeth, and penned his thoughts of her in poetic verse: “I don’t know how to justify myself to my lady / Should God lead me to stand before her eyes / Once I’m before her she will adjudge me/ Her betrayer, and with plenty of reason.

Queen Elizabeth loved and served the poor, building hospitals, convents, orphanages, and other buildings, some of which stand to this day. Every Good Friday, she had a number of lepers brought to her secretly. She would serve them a meal, wash them, dress their wounds, give them clean clothes and fill their purses with money.

Elizabeth’s generosity of heart and Christian love led to perhaps her most heroic act of charity. Well aware of his wife’s keen intellect and great virtue, the king asked her to care for and tutor his out-of-wedlock children. She did not refuse. Unfortunately, this arrangement bore bitter fruit as her children grew to adulthood. Alfonso, her son, became increasingly jealous and hostile toward his half-brother, and was determined not to wait until his father’s death to have the throne. Alfonso led a revolt against his father, and King Dinis responded by reinforcing his own army and banishing Elizabeth to exile, wrongly believing she was siding with her son. The whole kingdom stood in peril as a result of this family feud.

Deeply troubled by this conflict between the two men she loved most, Elizabeth was determined to mediate peace between the two sides. Riding for days, she arrived at the battlefield and rode into the midst of the two armies, and succeeded in negotiating peace between the two sides.

Elizabeth’s prayers for the king’s conversion were answered later in his life. He reformed his immoral ways, and died a penitent with Elizabeth attending him. Upon the king’s death, Elizabeth distributed her personal property to the poor, became a Franciscan tertiary, and retired to a Poor Clare monastery she had founded.

Still, her role as peacemaker was not over. When her son King Alfonso marched against his son-in-law, the King of Castile, to punish him for being an abusive husband to Alfonso’s daughter, Elizabeth again rode to the battlefield, now much older and in poor health. This peacemaking mission took its toll on her, however, and she died shortly thereafter. Her body remains incorrupt, reportedly intact, beautiful and in peaceful repose. Pope Urban VIII canonized Elizabeth of Portugal on May 25, 1625.

 “Seeing as God made you without peer / In goodness of heart and goodness of speech / Nor is your equal to be found anywhere./ My love, My lady, I hereby tell you: / Had God desired to ordain it so / You would have made a great king.

-King Dinis extolling his wife, Queen Elizabeth

Faith in Action

In what way(s) is Saint Elizabeth of Portugal a good role model for me? How can I best imitate her in my life?

This is an excerpt from the Women of Grace® Foundational Study Guide, “Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life”