Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/November 5

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Saint Elizabeth, also spelled Elisabeth or Elisheva (Hebrew אֱלִישֶׁבַע / אֱלִישָׁבַע "My God is an oath",) was the mother of St. John the Baptist and the wife of St. Zachary/Zacharias, according to the New Testament and the Quran.

In Luke 1:36 Elizabeth is described as a relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The mother of Mary is also known from another source, the infancy Gospel of James.

According to the Gospel of Luke, Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron the priest (Luke 1:5). She and her husband Zechariah were "righteous before God, living blamelessly" (1:6), but childless. Zechariah was visited by the angel Gabriel, who told him his wife would have a son who "will be great in the sight of the Lord" (1:15).

The pregnant Elizabeth was visited by her relative (1:36), who was pregnant with Jesus:

And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb.

And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost and she cried out with a loud voice:

"Blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." (1:41-42)

In the Bible, Saint Zechariah (Zachary in the Douay-Rheims Bible, or Zacharias in the King James Version of the Bible), was the father of John the Baptist.

According to the Gospel of Luke, Zechariah was a priest of the line of Abijah, during the reign of King Herod the Great, and husband of Elizabeth, a woman from the priestly family of Aaron. The parentage of John the Baptist is not recorded in the other Gospels. The evangelist states that both the parents were righteous before God, since they were blameless in observing the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. When the events related in Luke commenced, their marriage was still childless, because Elizabeth was barren and, like her husband, was advanced in years (Luke 1:5-7).

The duties at the temple in Jerusalem alternated between each of the families that had descended from those appointed by King David (1 Chronicles 23:1-19). The offering of incense was one of the most solemn parts of the daily worship, and owing to the large number of eligible priests, no priest could hope to perform the task more than once during his lifetime. Luke states that during the week when it was the duty of his family to serve at the temple in Jerusalem, the lot for performing the incense offering had fallen to Zechariah.

The evangelist states that while Zechariah ministered at the golden altar of incense, an angel of God announced to him that his wife would give birth to a son, whom he was to name John, and that this son would be the forerunner of the long-expected Messiah (Luke 1:12-17). On his return home Elizabeth duly conceived. .

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