Life (1880-1906)

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.

Source: https://www.carmelitedcj.org/carmel/saints-of-carmel/160-bl-elizabeth-of-the-trinity

Scripture (Eph 1:3-10,13-14)

(Year B). I have found my vocation there, I am to be the praise of His glory  eternally. I wish to be laudem gloriae[praise of glory] here on earth.

How can we fulfill this great dream of the heart of our God, this immutable desire regarding our souls —in a word, how can we respond to our vocation and become a perfect '"praise of the glory" of the most Blessed Trinity? In heaven, every soul is a praise of the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, because each soul is grafted unchangeably in pure love, and lives no longer its own life, but the life of God. Then, as St. Paul says, it knows Him as it is known by Him.

The praise of glory is a soul that dwells in God, with the pure, disinterested love which does not seek self in the sweetness of His love; a soul that loves Him above all His gifts, and would have loved Him as much had it received nothing, which wishes well to the object of its tenderness. But how can we wish well to God, except by accomplishing His will, since this will ordains all things for His greater glory? Such a soul should surrender itself fully, blindly, to this will so that it cannot possibly wish anything but what God wishes.

The praise of glory is a silent soul, a lyre beneath the touch of the Holy Spirit from which He can draw divine harmonies. Knowing that suffering is a chord that emits still more exquisite tones, this soul rejoices at giving it forth, that it may impress the heart of its God more pleasingly.

The praise of glory is a soul that contemplates God in faith and in simplicity ; it reflects His whole being, and is a fathomless abyss into which He can flow and outpour Himself; a crystal through which He can shine and view His own perfections and splendour. A soul which thus permits the Divine Being to satisfy within it His craving, to communicate all He is and has, is truly the "praise of glory" of all His gifts.

Finally, the praise of glory, is one who is always giving thanks, whose acts, movements, thoughts, aspirations, while more deeply establishing her in love, are like an echo of the eternal Sanctus in the heaven of glory. The blessed rest not day or night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. . .and, falling down, adore Him that liveth for ever and ever.  The praise of glory begins now, within the heaven of her soul, the task that will be hers for all eternity. Her chant is uninterrupted; she acts beneath the influence of the Holy Ghost, although she may sometimes be unconscious of it, for human weakness prevents souls keeping their attention fixed on God without distractions. She sings and adores perpetually, and has, so to speak, gone out from self  and become absorbed in praise and love, in her passion for the glory of her God.

Let us, in the heaven of our soul, be a homage of glory to the Blessed Trinity. One day the veil will be withdrawn, and we shall be brought into the eternal courts; there we shall sing in the bosom of infinite Love, and God will give us the new name  promised to him that overcometh. What will that name be ? — Laudem Gloriae! (Various letters)