Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity is one of the newer Saints, having only been canonized in 2016 by Pope Francis. Born Elizabeth Catez, she came from a military family and was born on the 18th July 1880.
Growing up, others noticed in the Saint, a strong will and a ferocious temper. A family friend and Parish Priest remarked that, “Elizabeth, with her temperament, would either be an angel or a devil.”
Saint Elizabeth was a talented pianist and won conservative prizes. She could have had a musical career, but already at the age of 7, she shared her desire to become a Nun. She was described as bossy and with a naturally noisy nature, yet after the death of her Father and others in her life, she knew that her temper tantrums would only make her Mother’s burdens harder to bear. The Saint repented and virtues began to flower in her, as she learnt to renounce her unsubdued nature. Her friends started noticing how she would bite her lip when someone gave her a telling-of, in order to stop an angry reply. She would also allow others to talk before she shared her own ideas. At the core of this transformation was her growing love of God in contemplation. Differently to the views of others at the time, she believed everyone could contemplate and that it was not just for Monks and Nuns. At Mass, however rowdy she was before, she would become motionless at prayer.
The Saint did not have an easy ride when it came to following her vocation. Her Mother was a staunch opposition to her entering Carmel, where she felt the word whispered in her soul from an early age. Her Mother prevented her from entering at the age of 19 and agreed she could only enter after she was 21. She flourished upon entering Carmel in her spiritual life, and all those with whom she shared the community admired her. In contemplation, she penetrated the meaning of the indwelling of the Holy Trinity within her.
Though she was naturally gifted in prayer, there were times where she experienced such aridity that prayer became repugnant to her and at times, she nearly got up to leave. But Saint Elizabeth continued to persevere. At her Profession, when she made her life-long vow to Christ, she wrote, “And now I have only one desire, to love him, to love him all the time…to make him happy by preparing a dwelling and a refuge for him in my soul.”
She wrote her most famous prayer, which I will show below:
‘O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to be utterly forgetful of self so as to be rooted in you, as changeless and calm as if I were already in eternity. May nothing disturb my peace or draw me out of you, my unchangeable One, but at every moment may I penetrate ever more deeply into the depths of your mysteries: Make me peaceful, make me your heaven. A home that you love and the place where you can be at rest; may I never leave you there alone, but be there entirely absorbed, in living faith, wholly adoring, freely given up to your creative action.
O my Christ whom I love, crucified by love, I long to be the bride of your heart; I long to cover you with glory and love you…until I die of love. But I realize how weak I am and I beg you to clothe me with yourself, to identify my soul with the movements of your soul. Immerse yourself in me, possess me, substitute yourself for me, that my life becomes but a reflection of your life. Enter into me as Adorer, Restorer and Savior.
Eternal Word, Utterance of my God, I want to spend my life listening to you. I want to make myself completely open to learn everything from you. Through all the nights, through every privation and weakness I want to be with you always, living beneath your blazing light, beloved star; so fascinate me that I can no longer stray from your radiance.
Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, come down upon me and make me as it were an incarnation of the Word; may I be another humanity in which He lives out once more His mystery. And you, Father, bend down to your poor little creature, cover her with your shadow and see in her only the Well-Beloved in whom You were well pleased.
O my “Three,” my All, my Bliss, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I loose myself, I give myself up to you as your prey; immerse yourself in me that I may be immersed in you until I go to gaze forever, in Your light, on the boundless depths of your greatness.’
Saint Elizabeth endured great spiritual and physical suffering, especially as her health declined, due to Addison’s disease, which was the cause of her death on the 9th November 1906 at the age of 26. She kept from others the agony that she was enduring. For certain periods, she was unable to swallow, which prevented her, at times from receiving Holy Communion. Even through these difficulties, she encouraged others in their own suffering to welcome it for the sake of Christ, to say to Christ, ‘Come to me and I will refresh you.’
She encourages souls by her words, ‘It seems to me, the weakest, even the guiltiest soul, is the one who has the most reason for hope; and the act of forgetting self and throwing oneself into the arms of God, glorifies Him and gives Him more joy than all the turning inward and all the self-examinations that make one live with one’s own infirmities, though the soul possesses at its very center a Savior who wants at every moment to purify it.”
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity understood the love of God for her and that was how she was able to love God so whole-heartedly back. She wrote her last letter to her Mother Superior, with the main message being to ‘let yourself be loved’. For this is what God wants of us. Saint Elizabeth would say, ‘It’s so simple’.
Through her simple approach, this Saint helps us to understand how we can find God, in every moment in the in-dwelling of the Holy Trinity within us.
Pray for us and teach us Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity how to contemplate this great mystery and how to transform into the person who God wants us to be.
*(A good book on Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity is, 'He Is My Heaven; The Life of Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity', by Jennifer Moorcroft.)
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