November 8

Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906) nun

Today the Catholic Church commemorates Elisabeth Catez, better known as Elizabeth of the Trinity.
Born in 1880 in Avor, near Bourges, France, Elizabeth spent her childhood in Dijon. She had a difficult character and was deeply wounded by the loss of her father when she was a child. In conflict with her mother, who opposed her religious vocation, Elizabeth became an excellent pianist and spent her time in élite circles, without losing her love for the inner life.
At the age of twenty-one she entered a Carmelite monastery. This was her radical answer to the call to return to what she herself called the "cell of the heart," destined to become the dwelling place of the Trinity. Elizabeth's monastic life was, more than anything else, a search for God's presence in her heart, and in her heart and conscience she offered a maternal space so that the Spirit could generate the Word in her.
Afflicted by a severe form of tuberculosis, Elizabeth spent the last year of her life in severe pain. Yet at the moment when her anguish became unbearable, she was flooded with the peace she had always longed for. By constantly meditating upon the Bible, and especially the letters of St. Paul, she was able to make her cross a journey of love without limits, as she testifies in her Retreats, written shortly before her death.
On November 8, 1906, just after her twenty-sixth birthday, Elizabeth died, saying, "I am going towards the light, towards love, towards life."