"Your Tripod" reflects the personal Fourth Day journeys of its authors and editors. We are happy to have companions like you share in this project. Our prayer is that these reflections will invite and inspire your Fourth Day journey of Piety, Study and Action as much as writing or editing them inspires our journey and brings us all close moments with Jesus and our neighbors.
How many say of me, "God will not save that one." But you, LORD, are a shield around me; my glory, you keep my head high. (Psalm 3:3-4)
Jesus said to (Zacchaeus), “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:9-10)
Piety
Almighty God, by whose grace your servant Elizabeth of Hungary recognized and honored Jesus in the poor of this world: Grant that we, following her example, may with love and gladness serve those in any need or trouble.In the name and for the sake of and through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
As a child, I was delighted to be able to claim two special ladies (because I couldn’t make up my mind which one to choose!) as patron saints:Elizabeth, cousin to Our Lady and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.I must admit that the delightful story of the young queen who gave away her own lovely gowns and her husband’s wealth was a fairy tale. I loved the story where Elizabeth, on her way to feed the poor carrying bread wrapped in her cloak, is confronted by her husband, King Louis.What you are doing, he demands.And when she opens her cloak to reveal the bread, roses spill to the ground.How perfectly delightful and inspiring a tale.
Reading her story later – some of which is no doubt embroidered by pious fans – her life is revealed as so much more complex and rich than my childish fancies.Although beautiful, beloved by her husband and very rich, Elizabeth sought to do God’s will above all.She was aware of the plight of the poor and struggled with the contrast between her life and the suffering of Jesus.Even her love for her husband and children was a source of temptation to her; she prayed for strength to love God more than her family.She spent all of her wealth founding hospitals, tending the sick or homeless and feeding the hungry yet was vilified by the society of the court.She died in voluntary poverty in a convent, passionately happy that God’s will moved in her; she felt and responded to God’s call in life and death.Many miracles have been ascribed to her and she is known as patron of nursing services, of those falsely accused, of bakers and others.
Today, I see those roses in her cloak as the image of what good works and doing God’s will – even in ordinary lives – mean to God and mean for the world.We, too, are filled with God’s roses when we work for God not for ourselves.
Action
We, Americans, are, in many respects, queens and kings of the entire world.Do we stay within the walls of our castles, safe, sound, warm, fed?Who do we see as poor - including those who are poor in spirit?Do we denigrate and ostracize those who look, smell, think, and believe differently from us?Does our charity extend to those who make wrong choices?Do we condemn or do we extend ourselves to the Zacchaeus’ around us?
