Saint Who?
Saints Who Were Poets
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity
Religious († 1906)Feast: November 8
“I love to penetrate beyond the veil of the soul to this inner sanctuary where we live alone with God…. Listen to everything that is being sung….” Born in 1880, Elizabeth Catez conceived an ardent desire for Carmelite life at seventeen. But out of deference to her mother, she waited until she was twenty-one to pursue it. Until that time, she joined in the duties and pleasures of her state “without making a face.”
Pretty, lively, musically talented, and kind, she attracted everyone who met her. But those around her also recognized the glow of her driving passion: love for Christ. The more perceptive young men of her acquaintance remarked: “She is not for us. Look at her face.”
Elizabeth entered the Carmel in Dijon, France. Her spiritual journey is recorded in her diary and letters. She also wrote poems. Some were intended for friends. Others were simply intimate expressions of her encounter with God, such as her poem “Perpetual Adoration,” where she expressed her great desire to suffer for Christ. Elizabeth wished to live as a victim of love, and to express that love by helping others enter into mystical prayer. She died at twenty-six, rejoicing to enter heaven. “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life.”
Beloved Trinity, through the intercession of
Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity, accept me as
a victim of your limitless mercy.
