Louis was a German prince who married St. Elizabeth of Hungary when he was twenty-one and she was just fourteen. Their parents had arranged the marriage, as this was the custom.

But they both loved God, and he gave them great love for each other so that they were very happy together. Their joy increased when God gave them their three children. The youngest was Blessed Gertrude.

Louis helped his wife in her many works of charity for the poor. He also joined her in prayer each day. The people often saw their handsome prince and his lovely wife helping the poor.

Once Elizabeth brought a leper into their castle and looked after him in their bed. For a moment, when Louis saw that, he was angry. Then, suddenly, instead of the leper, he saw our crucified Lord lying there. This was proof of how much Jesus loved Elizabeth’s charity. Then Louis built a big hospital for lepers.

One long, bitter cold winter, Louis was called away from his land to deal with some trouble. When he returned, Elizabeth was overjoyed. But the next year when Louis left on a Crusade to free the Holy Land from the Muslims he caught malaria on his way there, and soon was dying.

Because he had always been close to Jesus, the brave ruler was not frightened to die. He received the Last Sacraments and died peacefully in 1227.

St. John Chrysostom was born in Antioch in Greece. His father died when he was a baby and his mother decided not to marry again. She gave all her attention to bringing up her son and daughter.

She made many sacrifices so that John could have the best teachers. He was very intelligent and could have become a great man in the world. When he gave speeches everyone loved to listen to him. In fact, his name, Chrysostom, means, “Golden-mouthed.”

Yet John wanted to give himself to God. He became a priest and lived for about 12 years preaching in Syria. Later he was made bishop and then Archbishop of the great city of Constantinople.

St. John was a wonderful bishop. Although he was always sick, he did a great amount of good. He preached once or twice every day, fed the poor and took care of orphans.

He corrected sinful customs and stopped bad plays from being performed. He loved everyone, but was not afraid to tell even the empress when she did wrong.

Because he fought sin, St. John had many enemies - even the empress herself. She had him sent away from Constantinople. On the trip he suffered greatly from fever, without food and sleep. Yet, he was happy to suffer for Jesus. Just before he died, he cried out, “Glory be to God!”

When St. John died in Turkey on September 14, 407 a terrible hailstorm fell on Constantinople.

Four days later, the evil empress died too. Her son honored St. John’s body and showed how sorry he was for what his mother had done.