St. Elizabeth of the Trinity: Made Holy With the Holiness of God

A book review of ‘Elizabeth of the Trinity: A Life of Praise to God’

(photo: Register Files)

Hagiography, or else the study of the lives of the saints, is built on a solid integration of good biographical insight and theological reflection. This integration is difficult to achieve. Without appropriate attention to real-life circumstances, a saint’s doctrinal contributions remain dis-incarnate and idealized. Without a disciplined exploration of the doctrinal content of a saint’s message, any description of the virtues of a holy life remains difficult to appropriate to one’s own circumstances.  When, however, sufficient biographical and theological insights are artfully brought to bear, the unique spiritual mission of a saint can lift up our hearts and draw us closer to God. Sister Giovanna della Croce achieves this in her work Elizabeth of the Trinity: A Life of Praise to God.

Sister Giovanna is, like St. Elizabeth, a contemplative and Carmelite nun. Whereas St. Elizabeth lived in Dijon, France, at the beginning of the 20th century, Sister Giovanna is alive now, in her convent in Milan, Italy. After contributing important scholarly works and articles on another Carmelite, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Sister Giovanna provided this short introduction to the witness and message of St. Elizabeth. By the time she began her work on St. Elizabeth, she had learned that not only personal life circumstances, but also culture and history all flow into a saint’s spiritual mission in the Church. It is in her insightful way of weaving these connections together that she helps us more fully appreciate St. Elizabeth’s message for our time.

As she unfolds details about St. Elizabeth’s life, Sister Giovanna paints a picture of the emergence of post-Christian Europe in the late 19th century, a time when great cultural achievements and high moral standards were broadly appreciated, but also questioned. While describing how young Elizabeth explored the music of Mendelson, Litz and Chopin, Sister Giovanna also gives us a sense of the cloud of dehumanizing political forces gathering in Europe. The saint’s achievements are not exaggerated. Nor is the state of the Church romanticized. Instead, the rich but turbulent societal forces of the late 19th and early 20th centuries serve as the background for St. Elizabeth’s spiritual development and special calling from God.

Sister Giovanna helps us discern the movements of the Holy Spirit in the midst of St. Elizabeth’s world.  She rightly discerns that St. Elizabeth is not a mystic in the sense of the extraordinary phenomena that is popularly associated with great contemplatives. Yet, she maintains, St. Elizabeth is a mystic in a more general sense: in the sense of a Christian whose whole life is completely infused with God’s presence and united to his holy purpose.

Throughout the work, important insights are provided into the saint’s conviction that, through prayer, Christians are made holy with the holiness of God. Through the cross of Christ, God has found a way to dwell with us, to bring us peace and to communicate his transforming goodness in the most personal manner. St. Elizabeth was devoted to this loving, “indwelling” presence of the Trinity through prayer.

On this point, Sister Giovanna helps us share her own astonishment over how, even as some Catholics were fearful or else alienated by the new attacks on religious freedom in that period, the young Carmelite mystic was filled with hope for her country and for her people, a timely reminder for her feast day, Nov. 8 — and our Election Day. Her hope moved her to courageously advocate confidence in the immensity of God’s love. By this, she became a kind of spiritual mother who diligently drew others to the intimate presence of the Triune God no matter their life circumstances.

A Life of Praise to God does not fail to address the storm of religious scandals that rocked Dijon, even as St. Elizabeth struggled in her last days. Sister Giovanna helps us see how these cultural calamities bring into relief St. Elizabeth’s message of hope.  She succeeds in inspiring confidence in the spiritual inheritance that this saint bequeaths to those she loves. We are given the sense that even when the exigencies of earthly anxieties were most oppressive, they were not enough to hinder the work that God was achieving in the hidden silence of Dijon’s Carmelite monastery.

Julie Enzler offers a beautiful translation of Sister Giovanna’s exploration. Striking and original, interpretations of St. Elizabeth’s own poetry, letters and reflections are thought-provoking. Very readable, understandable and easy to take to prayer, the blend of theological message, history, culture and personal details allows the charming personality and holiness of one of the Church’s newest saints to shine through each page.  

More than this, readers will discover that this work, both in content and in the way it is translated, opens up the spiritual mission that St. Elizabeth carries out from heaven — to help lead us into a silent awareness of the immensity of God’s loving presence within our souls, an awareness that is open to the transformation of our lives into the praise of God’s glory.

Elizabeth of the Trinity: A Life of Praise to God

By Sister Giovanna della Croce, O.C.D., translated by Julie Enzler

Sophia Institute Press, 2016. 

110 pages, $15.

TO ORDER, EWTNRC.COM: Item: 3772.