St Elizabeth of the Trinity healing oil (Patron for Canisation Miracle)

Description

St Elizabeth of the Trinity healing oil (Patron for Canisation Miracle)

The St Elizabeth of the Trinity healing oil dedicated to the French Discalced Carmelite professed religious.  Also, she was a mystic and a spiritual writer. She was known for the depth of her spiritual growth as a Carmelite. She experienced periods of deep darkness.  However, she was acknowledged for her persistence in pursuing the will of God.  She devoted herself to the chrism of the Carmelites.

Elizabeth once wrote;  “I can’t find words to express my happiness. Here there is no longer anything but God. He is All; He suffices and we live by Him alone”

Elizabeth’s early life

She was born as Élisabeth Catez in the military base at Avord in Cher (1880) as the first child of Captain Joseph Catez and Marie Rolland. She was baptized at the camp’s chapel on the following 22 July. Elizabeth’s father died unexpectedly on 2 October 1887.  As a result the family moved to Dijon.

Elizabeth had a terrible temper as a child. After receiving her First Communion in 1891 she gained more self-control and had a deeper understanding of God and the world. She also gained a profound understanding of the Most Holy Trinity to which she cultivated an ardent devotion. Elizabeth visited the sick, sang in the church choir and taught religion to children who worked in factories.

Elizabeth entered the Dijon Carmel on 2 August 1901. She said: “I find Him everywhere while doing the wash as well as while praying.” Her time in the convent amongst other Carmelites had some high times as well as some very low times. She wrote of when she felt she needed a richer understanding of God’s great love.

At the end of her life, she began to call herself “Laudem Gloriae.” Elizabeth wanted that to be her appellation in Heaven because it means “praise of glory.” She said: “I think that in Heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them to go out of themselves in order to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within which will allow God to communicate Himself to them and to transform them into Himself.”

Elizabeth and Therese of Lisieux contemporaries

Her spirituality is considered to be remarkably similar to that of her contemporary and compatriot Discalced Carmelite sister. Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who was cloistered at the Carmel in Lisieux. The two saints share a zeal for contemplation and the salvation of souls.

Elizabeth died at the age of 26 of Addison’s disease,[2] which in the early 20th century had no treatment. Then and still today, there is no cure. Though her death was painful, Elizabeth gratefully accepted her suffering as a gift from God. Her last words were: “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life!”

Pope John Paul II beatified Elizabeth on 25 November 1984.

Pope Francis celebrated her canonization on 16 October 2016.