Image: James Tissot, Portrait of Zacharias and Elizabeth, c. 1886–94. Brooklyn Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
This site follows the traditional Roman calendar of 1962, as found in the 1962 Roman Missal used at the Traditional Latin Mass. Some feast days fall on different dates than in the General Roman Calendar of 1969, revised after the Second Vatican Council.
Erant autem justi ambo ante Deum, incedentes in omnibus mandatis et justificationibus Domini sine querela.
Luke 1:6
And they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame.
About Today
Today is a feria in the 1962 calendar, with no saint’s feast in the Missal. The saints honored here are taken from the traditional Roman Martyrology for November 5.
Their Lives
Zachary was a priest of the course of Abia, and his wife Elizabeth was a daughter of Aaron and a kinswoman of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They lived blamelessly before God, yet they had no child, and both had grown old.
While Zachary was offering incense in the Temple, the Angel Gabriel appeared and told him that Elizabeth would bear a son, to be named John, who would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias. Because Zachary doubted, he was struck mute until the promise was fulfilled.
Elizabeth conceived, and in her sixth month she was visited by Mary, who was carrying Our Lord. At Mary’s greeting the child leapt in Elizabeth’s womb, and filled with the Holy Ghost she cried out, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” When John was born and named, Zachary’s tongue was loosed, and he sang the Benedictus, the canticle the Church still prays each morning at Lauds.
A Lesson for Today
Zachary and Elizabeth teach patient fidelity: they kept God’s law through long years of unanswered prayer, and God answered in His own time beyond all they had asked.
Sancti Zacharia et Elisabeth, orate pro nobis.
Sts. Zachary and Elizabeth, pray for us.