Elizabeth of the Trinity

Élisabeth Catez was born on 18 July 1880 at the military camp of Avord in Cher (near Farges-en-Septaine), the first child of Captain Joseph Catez and Marie Rolland. She was baptized in the camp chapel on 22 July. A younger sister, Marguerite, was born in 1883. The family moved with the father's postings to Auxonne and then Dijon. As a little girl Elizabeth showed an iron will and a violent temper; tradition recalls a rage at nineteen months when she thought she recognized her own doll dressed as the Infant Jesus in a crib. On 2 October 1887 her father died suddenly of a heart attack in her arms; she was seven. The widow and her two daughters settled near the Carmel of Dijon.

She made her first confession that same year and later called it the day of her "conversion," an awakening to the things of God. First Communion followed on 19 April 1891 at Saint-Michel; Confirmation was given at Notre-Dame on 8 June. After Communion her mother took her to the Carmel, where the prioress gave her a holy card explaining that her name means "House of God." From that evening she felt drawn to Carmel. She struggled against her temper, visited the sick, sang in the choir, taught catechism to factory children, and excelled at the piano, winning the Dijon Conservatory's first prize in 1893. At fourteen she made a private vow of chastity. Suitors sought her hand; her mother delayed her vocation and introduced her to worldly society, yet Elizabeth kept her eyes fixed on the monastery two hundred meters from home. Only when she came of age did her mother finally consent.

On 2 August 1901 she entered the Discalced Carmel of Dijon and received the name Elizabeth of the Trinity. She made her perpetual profession on 11 January 1903. In the cloister she found God everywhere—"while doing the wash as well as while praying"—and wrote of a happiness that left "nothing but God. He is All; He suffices and we live by Him alone." Central to her interior life were three names she believed God had given her: House of God, Praise of Glory (Laudem Gloriae), and Host of Praise. She drew deeply from Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint John of the Cross, and her path of contemplative silence and apostolic desire for souls closely resembled that of her contemporary Thérèse of Lisieux. In November 1904 she composed her famous prayer "O my God, Trinity whom I adore."

Symptoms of Addison's disease appeared in 1903; there was then no cure. By 1905 fasting was forbidden her; in 1906 she was confined to the infirmary. She accepted the suffering as a gift that drew her nearer to God and desired her heavenly mission to be that of drawing souls out of themselves so they might cling to God in simple love and remain in the silence where He transforms them. On 9 November 1906, at the age of twenty-six, she died with the words: "I am going to Light, to Love, to Life!"

Her writings—letters, poems, prayers, and spiritual notes—were soon published and widely read. The diocesan process opened in Dijon in 1931. Declared Venerable in 1982 for heroic virtue, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Paris on 25 November 1984 and canonized by Pope Francis on 16 October 2016. Her feast is kept on 9 November.

May Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity obtain for us a deeper dwelling in the Holy Trinity and the grace to become, like her, a living praise of glory.