Today November 8

Today is the feast of the strong-willed Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, (1880 - 1906). I didn't know the name Elizabeth means "House of God." Elizabeth herself didn't know until a kindly nun told her on her First Communion day when she was 11. It made a deep impression on her and was in a way a herald of things to come. She worked hard even then to tame her impetuosity and anger and so to quiet and open her soul so that God, the Holy Trinity, might dwell there.

She was a very pretty woman, bright and sensitive, and had many offers of marriage -- all of which she turned down. Her thoughts drifted up to God constantly. She so thought of only "Him" you could say she was preoccupied by God. But still her mother wouldn't let her go into religious life. She subjected her daughter to the whole round of social appearances and obligations she felt necessary to one in her station in life. Elizabeth went, but her heart wasn't in it. She did, however, love music and had a natural gift for the piano, especially classical pieces (Benedict XVI and she would have gotten along famously, I think.) "No one interprets the great masters as she does," said a friend. There are pictures of her at the piano and in the garden, glowing with happiness and chaste pride. She was a normal girl -- and yet there was something special about her.

She told a priest she had the experience of "being dwelt in." The sympathetic man said it was not a fiction -- it was real: the Holy Trinity dwelt in her soul through Baptism, and this mystical experience was the "full flowering" of it. It was a turning point in her life. Shortly after that, her mother let her go to the Carmel at Dijon. She entered and was given the name Elizabeth of the Trinity -- how appropriate.

From then on, she not only walked on the road to holiness; she ran, she flew. "I have passed into the soul of Christ," she said. "I want to make Him loved by the whole world. I love 'til I could die of love." (In this she sounds like her spiritual sister, St. Therese of Lisieux.) And so she soon would, it seemed. She entered the infirmary in March of '06 and died in November of the same year, after barely 5 years in the convent. But thanks be to God, her prioress had her write down her thoughts and so she did out of obedience, making particular use of the time she had during the long sleepless nights. So we now have some of her lovely, simple and direct writing of the Divine Indwelling. Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, pray for us.