| Saint Elisabeth of Schönau | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1129 Germany |
| Died | June 18, 1165 Schönau Abbey, Strüth, Germany |
| Honored in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Canonized | Not officially canonized |
| Feast | June 18 |
Elizabeth of Schönau (1129 – 18 June 1165) was a German Benedictine visionary. When her writings were published, the title of "Saint" was added to her name. She was never canonized, but in 1584 her name was entered in the Roman Martyrology and has remained there. Her feast day is June 18.
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Elizabeth was born of an obscure family, entered the double monastery of Schönau in Nassau at the age of twelve, received the Benedictine habit, made her profession in 1147, and in 1157 became superioress of the nuns under the Abbot Hildelin.
Her hagiography describes her as given to works of piety from her youth, much afflicted with bodily and mental suffering, a zealous observer of the Rule of Saint Benedict and of the regulation of her convent, and devoted to practices of mortification. In the years 1147 to 1152 Elizabeth suffered recurrent disease, anxiety and depression as a result of her strict asceticism. St. Hildegard of Bingen admonished Elizabeth in letters to be prudent in the ascetic life.
In 1152, after a period of deep depression, Elizabeth began to experience ecstatic visions of various kinds. These generally occurred on Sundays and Holy Days at Mass or Divine Office or after hearing or reading the lives of saints. She reported that Christ, the Virgin Mary, an angel, or the special saint of the day would appear to her and instruct her; or she would see quite realistic representations of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, or other scenes of the Old and New Testaments.
She died on June 18, 1165. After her death she was buried in the abbey church of St. Florin.
What Elizabeth saw and heard she put down on wax tablets. Her abbot, Hildelin, told her to relate these things to her brother Egbert (or Eckebert), then a priest at the church of Bonn, who acted as an editor. At first she hesitated fearing lest she be deceived or be looked upon as a deceiver; but she obeyed. Egbert (who became a monk of Schönau in 1155 and eventually succeeded Hildelin as second abbot) put everything in writing, later arranged the material at leisure, and then published all under his sister's name. The events in the first book probably took place before Hildelin intervened and told her to write these things down, while the things in the later books may have been after this point in time and occurred when Elizabeth had already begun writing[1].
Thus came into existence three books of "Visions". Of these the first is written in language very simple and in unaffected style. The other two are more elaborate and replete with theological terminology.
The first diary opens with an account of the devil appearing to her in various forms to torment her. She wrote down many supposed conversations between herself and the saints, Mary, her guardian angel and occasionally God Himself.
On one occasion of religious frustration and fear, she wrote down an experience she supposedly had at a mass on a saturday when the Blessed Virgin was being celebrated, when she saw in the heavens "an image of a regal woman, standing on high, clothed in white vestments and wrapped with a purple mantle" [2]. The lady then eventually came closer to Elizabeth and blessed her with the sign of the cross, and reassured her that she would not be harmed by the things she had been frightened of. After receiving communion at the mass, she then went into an ecstatic trance and had another vision, declaring "I saw my Lady standing beside the altar, in a garment like a priestly chasuble and she had on her head a glorious crown" [3]. In her third text, she has Mary acting as an intercessor to hold back the anger of her Son from punishing the world in His anger for sin [4].
Because the population soon venerated Elizabeth as a saint, her bones were reburied between 1420 to 1430 in a special chapel. This chapel was destroyed in the great fire of the Schönau Abbey in 1723 and not rebuilt.
During the Thirty Years War Swedish and Hessian soldiers attacked Schönau Monastery. The Swedes expelled the monks, plundered the monastery, broke into the grave of Elizabeth, and scattered her bones. Only the skull was saved. It is now preserved in a reliquary on the right side of the altar of the church.
The parish of St. Florin Schönau Monastery annually celebrates the traditional Elisabethen-Fest on the Sunday after June 18.
There is a great diversity of opinion in regard to her revelations. The Church has never passed sentence upon them nor even examined them. Elizabeth herself was convinced of their supernatural character, as she states in a letter to Hildegard; her brother held the same opinion. Trithemius considers them genuine; Eusebius Amort (De revelationibus visionibus et apparitionibus privatis regulae tutae, etc., Augsburg, 1744) holds them to be nothing more than what Elizabeth's own imagination could produce, or illusions of the devil, since in some things they disagree with history and with other revelations (Acta Sanctorum, October, IX, 81).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.