November 8th, Elizabeth of the Trinity

[Denise]

Elizabeth Catez was born in 1880 in Avor, France. Her father was an army captain and died when she was seven. She had a younger sister, Guite, and they were very close to each other and their mother. At the age of seven, Elizabeth told a friend of the family, Canon Angles, that she would be a religious. She was a precocious child with a flashing temper until she made her First Communion. From that time on she was noticeably calm in temperament. She was an accomplished pianist. Her family was middle class, and they enjoyed parties and other social activities.

From the time of her First Communion in 1891, she “wanted to give her life and to return a little of His great love.” At the age of thirteen she bound herself to Jesus was a vow of virginity. Elizabeth’s heart had been captured, and now she could think only of Him. On her twenty-first birthday she had her mother’s blessing at last to enter the Carmel in Dijon, close to her home. Elizabeth expresses in her letters a deep joy at being in Carmel. Everything led her to her “Three,” the Trinity. She offered herself unconditionally to “Him”; He accepted.

Elizabeth became ill shortly after entering Carmel and suffered for five years from a stomach ailment, now thought to have been Addison’s disease. Her suffering was intense both spiritually and physically; this caused her love for Jesus to increase, and also her desire to offer these sufferings to Him.

In her writings Elizabeth refers often to the words of Saint Paul. She speaks of her vocation: “To be a bride, a bride of Carmel,” means to have the flaming heart of Elijah, the transpierced heart of Teresa, to be His “true bride,” because she was ”zealous for His honor.” St. Elizabeth of the Trinity had true depth of prayer, was a mystic, a great lover of Jesus, and a real friend to her sisters in Carmel and her family. She referred to herself as Laudem Gloriae, Praise of Glory. She died November 9, 1906. Her last words were: “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life!” Her canonization took place in Rome on October 16, 2016.