St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Biography

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880–1906) was born Élisabeth Catez on July 18, 1880, at a military camp near Bourges, France, the daughter of an army officer. The family moved to Dijon, where her father died when she was seven. As a child she worked hard to master a fiery temper. She was a gifted pianist. Drawn to prayer from an early age, she wished to enter the Carmel of Dijon, but her mother asked her to wait until she was twenty-one. She entered on August 2, 1901, receiving the name Elizabeth of the Trinity. Her spiritual life centered on the presence of the Holy Trinity dwelling in the soul through grace, and on her calling to be a 'praise of glory' to God, a phrase she drew from St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians. On November 21, 1904, she wrote her prayer 'O my God, Trinity whom I adore,' now loved throughout the Church. In 1905 she developed Addison's disease, then incurable, and she endured great suffering with peace. She died on November 9, 1906, at twenty-six. Among her last words were, 'I am going to Light, to Love, to Life!' She was beatified in 1984 and canonized by Pope Francis on October 16, 2016. Her day coincides with the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica; Carmelites keep her feast on November 8.

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