8 November Optional Memorial
Elizabeth of the Trinity is one of the best-known figures in contemporary spirituality. Through her example and her teaching, she has exerted an ever-growing influence for many years, due above all to her Trinitarian experience and her short writings (spiritual notes, correspondence) rich in doctrine and echoing her communion with the Three Divine Persons.
Humble and pure, rich in intelligence and open to all the beauties of grace, nature, and art, she learned the lesson of love for the “Three”—according to the expression she loved—and at the same time the laws of correspondence to that love from St. Paul, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross. Silence and recollection, enlightened contemplation of the Trinitarian mystery and Christological dogma, generous docility to the slightest inspirations, unconditional fidelity to the divine will in her Carmelite vocation, formed her to a life of dedication that soon reached high perfection.
Adhering to the soul of Christ, “her favorite book,” in him and with him she rose to the Trinity, of which she wanted to be laudem gloriae, that is, a soul “who always adores and, so to speak, is wholly transformed in praise and love, in the passion of the glory of her God.” Such praise and such love were directed essentially to the Three Divine Persons present in her soul: this is the center of her spirituality and her message. In fact, she wrote: “I am Elizabeth of the Trinity, that is, Elizabeth who disappears, who loses herself, who allows herself to be invaded by the Three.” And she added, "Love dwells in us: therefore, the exercise is to enter into my interior and lose myself in Those who are there.
This spiritual orientation, based on the conviction of faith in the divine indwelling, was the grace of her life. Faithful to the progressive inner enlightenment that came to her, above all, from her contemplative study of the texts of the Gospel and St. Paul, she was able to achieve remarkable experiences, such as that of the Ascensions of 1906: "This morning I heard this word deep in my soul: ‘If anyone loves me, my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’, and at that very moment I saw how this was really happening. I cannot say how the Three Divine Persons revealed themselves, but I saw them holding their council of love within me, and I still seem to see them like that." The grace of an almost uninterrupted awareness of the indwelling of the Trinity accompanied her during the last months of her life, strengthening and sustaining her during the period of martyrdom that was to “configure her to the death of Jesus, transform her into him crucified” for the glory of the Father and for the Church.
Already on November 21, 1904, in her famous Elevation to the Trinity: O mon Dieu, Trinité que j'adore, she had asked the Holy Spirit: “Descend into me, so that in my soul there may be another incarnation of the Word: that I may be an added humanity (”une humanité de surcroit“) in which he renews his mystery,” understanding that this aspiration could only be realized on the cross. God answered her prayer. The year 1906 was a succession of sufferings endured with fortitude in union with Christ, with her gaze turned to the Church and to souls. After a violent crisis, she was heard to exclaim: "O Love, Love! Consume all my substance for your glory. May it be distilled drop by drop for your Church! It was the ideal that sustained her and made her write to her mother: "The Father has predestined me to be conformed to his crucified Son; my Spouse wants me to be an added humanity in which He can suffer again for the glory of the Father and to help the Church: this thought does me so much good. He has chosen your daughter to associate her with the great work of Redemption, he has marked her with the seal of the Cross, and she suffers on it as an extension of the Passion."
Animated by these certainties, sustained by an ever more lively and theological love for the Immaculate Virgin, Ianua coeli, “the great praise of glory of the Trinity,” as Our Lady defined her, enjoying even in pain the intimacy with the “Three,” died, murmuring almost in a singing tone: “I am going to the light, to love, to life.”
Some time before, she had written: “The Trinity: this is our dwelling place, our home, our father's house from which we must never leave.” And two weeks before her death: “I believe that in heaven my mission will be to draw souls to interior recollection, helping them to come out of themselves to adhere to God with a very simple, loving movement, keeping them in that great interior silence that allows God to imprint Himself on them and transform them into Himself.” The invitation and the promise did not remain a dead letter: many souls, as evidenced by the documentation collected for the beginning of the cause of beatification, follow her path and her example in reliving her grace, the full grace of baptism that configures us to Christ and fixes in the depths of our being the loving presence of the Trinity, the source and end of all perfection.
On July 12, 1982, in the presence of the Holy Father John Paul II, the Decree on Virtues was promulgated. On February 17, 1984, the Decree on the miracle for beatification was promulgated (the Process had been conducted in Dijon in 1964-1965), and on November 25, 1984, the solemn Beatification took place in St. Peter's Basilica. Pope Francis canonized Elizabeth as a saint on October 16, 2016.
[Adapted from Valentino Macca, "Elizabeth of the Trinity" in Dizionario carmelitano, published by Edizioni Carmelitane]
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