Three Saints to Celebrate This Week

Rosemary Bogdan recaps the holy example of St. Albert the Great, St. Margaret of Scotland, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

St. Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus)

Today, November 15, we remember Saint Albert the Great. A German Dominican priest and Doctor of the Church, Albert was born in 1206. He left 38 volumes of writing on physics, geography, astronomy, mineralogy, alchemy (chemistry), and biology. He also wrote on friendship, botany and human and animal physiology, and applied Aristotelian principles to theology. Saint Thomas Aquinas was his most famous pupil.

Saint Albert wrote a compendium of all knowledge over the course of 20 years. It included natural science, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, ethics, economics, politics, and metaphysics! He wrote more than any other writer of his century and was called “the great” even during his lifetime. 

He is the patron saint of educators, teachers, medical technicians, philosophers, and scientists. Today’s Magnificat includes the following quote of Saint Albert:

To him alone belong infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, essential mercy, justice, truth, and charity, immutable eternity, and immensity. Nothing can exist and act of its own power, but every creature acts of necessity by the power of God, the first moving cause, the first principle and origin of every action, who acts in every active being.

In this age where some seem only able to recognize truth within the confines of science, perhaps Saint Albert would be a good intercessor. You can learn more about Saint Albert at EWTN.com. 

Saint Albert, we lift up to you all those who believe only in the reality of the material world. You who saw the glory of God in all of nature, please intercede for all who have lost the faith and all who do not recognize the action of God in nature.

Saint Albert, please also intercede for all parents who want to teach their children the entire truth about everything.

St. Margaret of Scotland

On Tuesday, November 16, we remember Saint Margaret of Scotland. She was a mother! We mothers love to hear of saints who shared our vocation. She had six sons and two daughters. She taught the faith to them herself and supervised their education. While I have not seen her designated as such, she would seem to be a great intercessor for home-school moms. How I wish we knew more about her teaching and mothering skills! She is officially the patron saint of Scotland and also patron of service to the poor.

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints we learn that Saint Margaret had a great influence over her husband. She “softened his temper, polished his manners, and rendered him one of the most virtuous kings ever to have occupied the Scottish throne.” Well. How is that for helping your husband get to heaven. She was also a great blessing to her country, “promoting the arts of civilization and encouraging education and religion.” She lived very austerely and often went to the Church at midnight with her husband the king. When she returned she would wash the feet of six poor persons and give them alms.

Magnificat’s readings of the day includes, “Margaret was an instrument of grace both in her marriage and her nation. She read aloud to her illiterate husband, encouraging him in a love of learning and a spirit of prayer.” The couple had prayer times for themselves and their households and would give banquets and serve as many as 300 poor people. She died in 1093. Her last words were, “O Lord Jesus Christ, who by Thy death gave life to the world, deliver me from all evil.”

Saint Margaret, please pray that the Lord would give all mothers and wives the love and devotion you had for your family as well as for the poor. May all wives have a positive influence on their husbands as did you. 

You can learn more about Saint Margaret at Simplycatholic.com.  

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This week's saints: one scholarly priest and two queens who served the poor. #catholicmom

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

On Wednesday, November 17, we remember Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, another great wife and mother. She was happily married to King Ludwig and they had three children. Like Saint Margaret she was very generous to the poor. Once again, how I wish we knew more about how she mothered her children, what she taught them, and how she raised them. We can assume that she would be a role model for mothers. In Magnificat’s reading for the day we learn,

She was a prodigy of charity. From the age of fourteen, when she became queen, she served the poor with her own hands. It is said that on one occasion, Elizabeth hurried from the palace with her apron full of bread for the hungry but was stopped by her angry husband. She opened the apron and a bunch of red roses tumbled out.

Saint Elizabeth’s husband died after only six years of marriage. She was utterly grief-stricken. After her husband’s death Saint Elizabeth became a Secular Franciscan. She died at the age of 24. Learn more about Saint Elizabeth at Catholic.org and FranciscanMedia.org. She is patroness of Catholic charities, the Secular Franciscan Order (Third Order), bakers, brides, death of children, homeless people, hospitals, and widows.

Good Saint Elizabeth, please teach us to be a wife and mother like you were. May we care for the poor among us, according to our individual station in life, as dutifully as you did. Please pray for us and for all mothers.

All you saints in heaven, please pray for all of us still struggling here on earth.

Copyright 2021 Rosemary Bogdan
Images (from top): copyright 2019 Holy Cross Family Ministries, all rights reserved; Albertus Magnus Statue, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Karl Parsons: St. Margaret of Scotland stained glass window, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Hugues Merle (1879) painting of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.