It is as a mother that Elizabeth comes closest to many of us. Many ideas about raising children were different in her time, but she gives us a valuable example of how to make sure that God comes first in our children's lives.

We know little about how Elizabeth taught her children about God and moral values, but the fruit her instruction bore was evident in their lives. We can be sure that the thing that made the greatest impression on them was the fact that she taught by example. Her children could see her giving much of her time and effort to the poor and taking food from her own mouth to give to them during a famine. Later, she was expelled from her home together with her children because she would not eat the food tainted by fraud and theft from the poor. It must have made great impression of the older children, Hermann and Sophia, that their mother was ready to give up so much to obey God.

Elizabeth was also attentive to the question of her children's vocations. She and her husband certainly did not neglect the possibility of giving one of their children to the religious life. They felt that their son Hermann would be destined to be a great ruler, perhaps even Emperor. Yet Elizabeth once said that she would rather have her son become a Friar Minor than Emperor. Hermann was already ruling in Thuringia when he died at the age of eighteen.

Before Elizabeth's husband left for the crusade where he was to die, they decided to give their yet unborn child as an oblate to the monastery at Altenberg. The child was a daughter, Gertrude. When she grew up, Gertrude ratified her parents' decision. She became a holy religious and was the abbess at Altenberg for many years until her death. She founded a hospital at her monastery, as her mother did, and nursing the poor there herself. Elizabeth's daughter Sophia also followed her mother's path and did not forget the lessons she had taught; she and her husband, Henri, the duke of Brabant, founded a hospice for the poor.

Children are gifts of God, gifts we are given for only a time. This brings us to one of the parts of Elizabeth's life that is most difficult for us. When she suffered from poverty after her expulsion, Elizabeth did not know where to lay her children's heads. Eventually she had to give up custody of them so they could be raised in safety. When she entered her religious life and hospital service, the children were raised by family members. Elizabeth had to make a gift to God of her anxiety for her children. From now on, she would let Him take care of them.

What Elizabeth did seems extreme. But everyone who has children goes through periods of anxiety about them, especially in regard to circumstances we cannot change. We worry often about their future. To love our children as they grow up also means to let go and give them the freedom to lead their own lives and go their own way. We must realize that things are ultimately in God's hands, as Elizabeth did. Jesus reminds us in the Gospel (Mk 10:29-30): we must always think of the Gospel first, even in everything that regards our family, even if it means making difficult decisions.

Spiritual Reflection:

Do I teach my children by words only or by example? Do I speak to them about the different possible vocations in life? Do I "let my children go" when necessary? Or do I tie them down out of habit or out of anxiety, denying them so the ability to develop?

Scripture

Proverbs 22:6

Train a child in the way he should go,

and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Mk 10:29-30

Jesus said, "Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come."

SFO Rule

Ch. II, no. 17 "They should joyfully accompany their children on their human and spiritual journey by providing a simple and open Christian education and being attentive to the vocation of each child."