Feast day: July 4

St. Elizabeth of Portugal

Queen · 1271–1336

Patron of Peace, against war

A queen of Portugal, grand-niece of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, famous for her charity to the poor and for personally riding between armies to make peace among warring kings.

Elizabeth — Isabel in Portuguese — was born in 1271, a princess of Aragon and the grand-niece of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, after whom she was named. Married while still a child to King Diniz of Portugal, she became a queen famous throughout her life for her piety, her charity to the poor and the sick, and above all for her gift as a peacemaker.

Her marriage was difficult; the king was unfaithful and often harsh, yet Elizabeth bore his faults with patience and even raised his illegitimate children alongside her own. She rose before dawn to pray, founded hospitals, orphanages, and shelters, and gave herself tirelessly to relieving the misery of her people.

Twice she rode out, literally, between opposing armies to stop a war. Most famously she reconciled her own husband with their rebellious son, placing herself between their battle lines; and years later, as an old woman, she set out again to make peace between the kings of Portugal and Castile, a journey that cost her her life.

After her husband's death she became a Franciscan tertiary and retired near a convent of Poor Clares she had founded at Coimbra. She died in 1336 on that last errand of peace, and was canonized in 1625. She is honoured as a patroness of peace and of peacemakers.

More than once she rode out between battle lines to reconcile her husband, her son, and rival kings — earning her enduring title, 'the Peacemaker.'

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/05391a.htm