St. Elizabeth
September 8

St. Elizabeth is a descendant of the Old Testament patriarch, Aaron, wife of Zacharias, a temple priest, and mother to St. John the Baptist becoming pregnant very late in life. As Zacharias was ministering in the Temple, an angel brought him news that Elizabeth would bear a child filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth. Zacharias doubted this and was thus struck incapable of speech until John’s birth.

St. John later baptized Christ in the Jordan River, a feast known as Theophany, after which John stepped away and told his disciples to follow Jesus. Imprisoned by King Herod for his Christian beliefs, John died a victim of the vengeance of a jealous woman; he was beheaded, and his head brought to her on a platter.

St. Elizabeth is described in the Gospel of Luke as “righteous in the eyes of God, observing all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly.” A relative of Mary, the Theotokos, Elizabeth was visited by Mary visited soon after the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce that she would bear the Christ Child. When Elizabeth heard this, "she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." (Luke 1:42)

Close Window