For All the Saints: Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity

Last updated on: January 24, 2017 at 7:18 pm by Webster Bull

For All the Saints: Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity 2017-01-24T19:18:14-05:00 Webster Bull

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Anyone who has struggled with anger, as I have, could do worse than read about Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, a French Carmelite remembered on November 8. Can one person experience both fits of rage and a certainty of God’s presence in her own heart? Yes, apparently, and thank the Lord.

Born in 1880, Elizabeth was just younger than Thérèse of Lisieux, who suffered from her own inner demons. Until she was fourteen, Thérèse was a spoiled brat, doted on by her father. Elizabeth lost her father suddenly when she was seven, exacerbating a character trait she already displayed: terrible outbursts of anger. She struggled with this for four years, until her first communion at age eleven. A Carmelite prioress told her that afternoon that her name, Elizabeth, meant the place where God dwells. She entered Carmel at age nineteen and lived only seven more years, dying of Addison’s disease, a painful endocrine condition. Near the end of her life, she began calling herself Laudem Gloriae, “Praise of Glory.” Until her death, she retained the certainty that God was dwelling in her heart. Her final words were, “I am going to light, to love, to life!”

Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity reminds me of another French religious, also a Carmelite but of the 17th century, who felt the presence of God, Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. In One Hundred Great Catholic Books by Don Brophy (a treasure for any convert), the author gives Lawrence’s simple back story*:*

From the little we know of him, he was born Nicholas Herman to a poor family in the Lorraine region of France. As a young man he served in the Thirty Years War, was taken prisoner once, and later wounded fighting the Swedes. He took a position as a footman to a Parisian banker but lost it for being a clumsy oaf. At loose ends, he became a Carmelite lay brother like his uncle, taking the name Lawrence of the Resurrection. At the Paris Carmel he was put into the kitchen and stayed there for thirty years. If you saw him, you would not think much of him: a large, ungraceful man who walked with a limp, doing menial work.

Like Blessed Elizabeth, Brother Lawrence knew with a certainty the presence of God. In fact, he developed a particular way of talking with and gazing internally upon God. You can read about it at this Web link. “My most usual method,” he said, “is simple attentiveness and a loving gaze upon God, to whom I often feel united with more happiness and gratification than a baby at its mother’s breast. . . . Indeed . . . I would willingly call this state ‘the breasts of God.'”

Blessed Elizabeth wrote something similar in a letter to a friend shortly before she died:

My beloved Antoinette, I leave you my faith in the presence of God, of the God who is all Love dwelling in our souls. I confide to you: it is this intimacy with Him “within” that has been the beautiful sun illuminating my life, making it already an anticipated Heaven: it is what sustains me today in my suffering.

The clincher for me is Blessed Elizabeth’s temper. I have seen in my own life how anger, which seems to come on in particular seasons of my life like storm cells across my landscape, can harm everything precious to me, both internally and externally. As a husband, as a parent, as a friend, I have sinned in anger. Of course, afterward I feel terrible remorse—along with an emptiness. The good that was in my heart seems to have been swept away with the raging storm winds.

But the promise of Blessed Elizabeth, and it is the promise of the Catholic Church too, is that we can always return home. This applies externally, as we can always return to prayer, to Mass, and especially to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But the experience of Blessed Elizabeth suggests, and certain moments of personal grace suggest to me, that we can always return internally as well, where we will find, quite miraculously, something far better than our mean selves waiting in our hearts.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

November 7, 2009

For Minor Miracles I

Next Post

November 8, 2009 Because This Book Really is Beautiful

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Blog News Conversion Story Culture Learning Living Nature Prayer Uncategorized Working

Select a Month June 2016 May 2016 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In what city did the disciples first preach to Gentiles and were first called Christians?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Ephesus Jerusalem Antioch Corinth