The "Mystic of Dijon:" St Elizabeth of the Trinity

Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906)

Feast November 8

 “God is in us in the most intimate way. 

We must go about everything with Him, then life is never banal. 

Even in ordinary tasks, because we do not live for these things, we will go beyond them.”

Patron of Divine silence.

At age 26, Sister Elizabeth passed from Addison’s disease, an adrenal gland disorder where the body cannot make adrenal hormones and steroids i.e. adrenaline. 

• This removed her ability to: regulate BP in fight/flight/freeze situations, maintain normal blood volume and balance her fluids and electrolytes. This resulted in profound weakness with position changes. Small movements would lead to exhaustion.

• Her silent suffering involved dehydration through loss of sodium and potassium. Without these key electrolytes, digestion issues (alterations in cellular osmosis) and muscle misfiring occur, including altered beating of the heart muscle.

• Most likely, she starved to death from the protein-cannibalization of her muscles for caloric energy and eventual cardiac muscle arrest. In her time, this would have been a painful and horrific death. Today, Addison's disease is treated with replacement adrenal hormones and steroids. While this isn't perfect, patients can at least, function. 

• In suffering saints, we find a pattern. The weight of their suffering is offset by overwhelming spiritual blessings. To them, the price of their suffering is worth the exponential-heavenly gifts that it buys. If removed or cured, it may be regretted due to lost interior benefits i.e. stigmata saints. These spiritual favors cannot be articulated. Like the wax of 2 inter-melting candles, the suffering soul's will melts into God's will, and the veil lifts. Therein lies their ecstatic mystical union leading to heaven on earth. Ergo, suffering may be a unit of currency that buys the "peace that surpasses all understanding," from Philippians 4:7. 

• Catholics maintain Our Lord's corpse on our crosses. Uniting our wills, we believe suffering and death, help us to share in the Resurrection. With all respect to free will, this is an opportunity cost in non-Catholic religions.

French Catholicism unravels

St Elizabeth's November death came amid great social uncertainty for the church and her convent. Only that spring, the French government attacked Catholicism through aggressive secularism. The local churchs seethed with scandal as evidenced by the pope removing the local bishop from office. The state confiscated local church property, sacred vessels and exiled other convent Carmelites, except hers. In her letters, St Elizabeth described this as a mere distraction to God calling them to a deeper peace in their souls. She described how God had taken over her prayer life. Despite France's turmoil, she used words of compassion in retreats for her community, in letters, and throughout her complete works, linked below. St Elizabeth wrote of the mysterious and transforming ways God discloses Himself in distress. As she explains, “everything is a sacrament that gives us God.”

Death becomes her

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity grew up around death. Her grandparents lived with them, so their losses were felt firsthand. Then her father died; shrinking her family to a trio of herself, her mother and little sister. As the eldest child, death created unresolved anger; however, God would channel this for good, later. This family threesome inspired her deeper understanding of God in 3-persons. Through her mother's homeschooling, repeating trinitarian metaphors transformed God’s presence into her family and further irradiated her soul. 

Carmel calls

At their modest Dijon home, the smells and bells of a Carmel convent from across the road regulated their schedules. They overheard the choir singing the hours. Meanwhile, the girls learned piano which paired music with an affinity for auditory stimulation. Harmony, silence, vibration, rests, lilts, peace, melodious etc.--are repeated themes throughout Elizabeth's writings. Meanwhile, piano, prayer and pilgrimages--which allowed staying with family along the way--were a 3rd trinity in St Elizabeth’s upbringing. Humbly, she received prestigious awards for her passionate performances of piano pieces. Meanwhile, Carmel continually called to her.

The hole in her heart

St Elizabeth's deceased relatives left unresolved anger leading to her passionate, fiery temper. There was a reform school nearby that her mother would reference as discipline. During tantrums, her mother quietly packed up Elizabeth's things for "her move there." (Today, this reform school is a Catholic school named after St Elizabeth.) However, the threat of removing "her" Carmel, immediately settled her anger. When St Elizabeth consumed her 1st holy Communion, she changed. On that holy day, she was told that her name means "House of God," which sealed her name and vocation. Witnesses testified to her profound surrender. Christ’s presence anchored her journey forward. She was no longer hungry because, “God has fed me.”

The simile saints

Her deep contemplation piqued interest from the local Carmelite nuns. As a teenager, she self-identified with Teresa of Avila’s descriptions of mystical marriage. She was among the first to consume St Therese of Lisieux’s Story of a Soul (1873-1897). While their 2 lives overlapped for 17 years on earth, they never met. St Therese's visual similes of flowers and elevators paralleled Elizabeth's auditory similes of silence for listening and hearing the voice of God. Both of these Carmelite saints knew  their vocations early, despite obvious age objections. Meanwhile, Elizabeth became involved in her parish. She catechized troubled children, first befriending them, exploring their unresolved anger and learning together, how to hear God through prayer. Dijon descendants of these tutorages flipped the nearby reform school into the private school which now bears her name.  

"Hold still for God's chisel"

In her final days, Addison’s emaciated St Elizabeth, rendering her unable to eat or drink. Difficult thoughts tormented her as her muscles burned away with pain. Yet, she remained devoted to Christ crucified. She was a block of marble to be sculpted, not by Michelangelo but her Trinity. Her mission was to help other souls, "enter into a deeper silence to encounter the Lord in a transformative way." To the end, she advocated “the all-loving God who dwells in our souls.” 

The bonfire in her heart

St Elizabeth regarded the Trinity as the furnace of an excessive love. Her little prayer of, “My God, My Three,” was her consecrated family. In her writings, she invites us to possess the Trinity through Divine silence,

"the Father beholding the Son in the fire of the Holy Spirit.

In silent stillness before God,

the loving gaze of the Father shines in our hearts

until God finds His Son in the soul.

Through the Holy Spirit, as the soul accepts the Father’s gaze,

the more it transforms us into the Word made flesh."

Mental prayer

Tradition calls mental prayer; direct conversations to God rooted in adoration, recollection and contemplation. The fruits of mental prayer are the ability to "gain access to our true home, the dwelling place of Love for which we are created — and not in some future moment, but in the present." St Elizabeth calls this, “eternity begun and growing.” Such prayer sanctifies the soul through the Spirit, glorifies the Father and extends work of Christ in us. This, “the praise of Glory” was God's plan for her as her great vocation.

A saint for our times

The canonization of St Elizabeth of the Trinity validated this mission and elevated silent prayer. Her miracle was their contemplative prayers' "invisible shield" against the lootings of the political machine. The secularists were unable to pillage any assets of her Carmelite convent.  Her community was never evicted or exiled but later moved--because it outgrew its location. At Carmel, St Elizabeth was "immovably” anchored to His presence. In our trying times, she shows us that no political power has absolute claim over our souls. Let us call on the “Mystic of Dijon” to intercede in “the Praise of Glory,” as our sign of hope during the current social unraveling of our time.

St Elizabeth of the Trinity, pray for us.

Mother Mary, pray for us.

Jesus, we trust in You.

Sources 

I have found God : complete works : Elizabeth of the Trinity, Sister, 1880-1906 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Elizabeth of the Trinity: A Saint for Our Time| National Catholic Register