Today September 11

Today, my husband's birthday, I'm proud to honor Blessed Louis of Thuringia, married layman (1200-1227). There are precious few of these, so let's look at him in detail. First of all, he was married to a saint. For some of you, that's not hard to imagine! You may have experience of that right now. And it's not all bad. It's only a joke to say, "She's a saint . . . and her husband's a martyr" or, as the Irish say, "His wife's a saint, God help him."

But it was a good and beautiful thing in Louis' case. It was an arranged marriage, purely for political reasons, and thus no one could blame him if it had turned out to be an unhappy one. . . or be too awfully surprised if he had turned for friendship elsewhere. But no, Louis of Thuringia and Elizabeth of Hungary loved each other from the start and were faithful to each other to the end. Louis even put up with his wife's extravagant charity, saying, "Let her do good and give to God whatever she will, so long as she leaves me Wartburg and Neuenberg." Now, when she pushed even further, and had beggars of all sorts come to stay in their house, even to the point of having a leper sleeping in their BED, he was tempted to anger. But then suddenly the figure of the leper changed before his eyes and became the crucified Son of God. That shut him up! But it was, all in all, a great grace, and Louis didn't take the message lightly. He ordered a leprosy hospital to be built and opened in his beloved Wartburg.

Louis was no pushover or pantywaist, however. He was all man. Twice he led raiding parties across his borders to recover property stolen from innocent victims. And he led a crusade to the Holy Land, ordering dramatic passion plays to be performed for the populace, giving rousing speeches to young men, and humbly praying for success in the monasteries of his realm (Thuringia). He set out at the head of all his forces, and at Otranto, far short of the Holy Land, he contracted malaria and three days later died. His last words gave evidence of what he alone saw in his final moments: "I must fly away with these white doves." St. Elizabeth, on hearing the news of his death, exclaimed: "The world is dead to me, and all that was pleasant in it." Blessed Louis, pray for us.