Who is Elisabeth of the Trinity, Our Newest Saint?

With her dynamic view of the Trinity in each moment of life, Elisabeth of the Trinity believed that time itself was “eternity begun and still in progress.”

(photo: Register Files)

Elisabeth of the Trinity was a Carmelite nun who died at the beginning of the 20th century at the age of 26.  Born in an Army camp in 1880, the oldest of two sisters, her father was a veteran and POW of the Franco-Prussian War who died while she was still a child. Her mother had a conversion experience before her marriage and was zealous to live a pious life — and perhaps a little too fearful and scrupulous. Yet she was very loving and extremely devoted to her daughters. She moved the family to Dijon a few blocks from the parish church of Saint-Michel, and just across the street from the Carmelite Monastery Elisabeth would someday join.  Josephine Catez raised her children around piano lessons, homeschool and involvement in the parish.  It was in this context that Elisabeth discovered her devotion to Christ and learned how to control herself. She, in fact, had a fiery temper but learned through prayer how to submit this to God with love.

Her devotion to Christ and to mental prayer impressed her friends and the nuns of her community even before she entered. As a teenager, she self-identified with Teresa of Avila’s descriptions of the prayer of union.  She was also among the first to read an early version of Thérèse of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul. After reading this work, she resolved to be a Carmelite nun.  She came to see herself as the Bride of Christ, as the beloved of the Canticle of Canticles who cries out “Nescivi! I no longer know anything but conformity to Christ crucified.”

This devotion to Christ, rather than causing her to be indifferent to others, moved her to implicate herself in the faith life and everyday struggles of her friends and family.  As her death grew closer, the more lovingly aware she became of their need for a deeper encounter with the Lord. She promised that it would increase her joy in heaven if her friends asked for her help and she was convinced that her mission was to help souls grow into a transforming union with God. In particular, she believed that she would be instrumental in leading souls out of self-occupation and into a beautiful silence where they might encounter the Lord and surrender themselves to Him completely.

Through confidence in the love of God and complete abandonment to His will, the transformation that she envisioned leads to adoration and praise. She described a simple movement of love in response to the pure excess of Divine Love that awaits us. This love suffers, but is, in Christ, unvanquished. The victory of love realized in Christ allows us to know the glory of God and the joy of praising Him. In her thought, God has predestined us in Christ to be the praise of His glory.  She, in fact, believed that the name that God gave her from heaven to be “Laudem Gloriae” unto the praise of glory. At the same time, she made it her mission to make sure that everyone else realized this great vocation as well — in the particular way that God Himself had called them.

The first step towards this, she proposed, is to occupy oneself with the love of the Holy Trinity – to recognize and to ponder the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as a bosom of eternal love and at the same time, our true home, the place where we are meant to dwell. Such an awareness of a personal relationship with the Trinity requires mindfulness of the purpose for which we are made. For her, we are created to welcome the excessive love of God and allow Him to satiate His desire to love us. The reality of heaven is not something that she believed was simply in the future of Christian existence – but present already in this present moment in time. God’s love comes to us in ever new ways through Christ Jesus, the Word of the Father, whom the Father continually sends into our hearts with the Fire of the Holy Spirit in ever new ways. With this dynamic view of the Trinity in each moment of life, she believed everything was a sacrament that gave us God and that time itself was “eternity begun and still in progress.”

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The Avila Foundation, along with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Carmelites of the Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, will host a special Mass of Thanksgiving in celebration of the life and canonization of Elizabeth of the Trinity on November 6 in Alhambra, California.

Here are the details:

Date: November 6, 2016

Location: St. Thérèse Church, 1100 East Alhambra Road, Alhambra, CA 91801

Schedule of Events:

3:30 p.m. Prayer and Reflection on the Life of Elizabeth of the Trinity
5:00 p.m. Mass in Celebration of Elizabeth of the Trinity
6:30-8:30 p.m. Reception at the Carmelite Sisters’ Motherhouse/Sacred Heart Retreat House (920 East Alhambra Road, across the street from St. Thérèse Church)

Who can come? All are welcome but you must register in order to participate. (Please click HERE to register or donate.)