The French nun who was Carmel’s most significant gift to the roster of
sanctity, since St. Therese of Lisieux. Elizabeth Cates was born on 18 th July,
1880 at the military camp of Avor, where her father was an officer in the French
Army.
When she was seven years old, her father passed away and Elizabeth and
her mother, along with her sister Marguerite, moved to Dijon. She received her
first Holy Communion in April 1891. About this time, she made a vow of
virginity and became aware of her Vocation to Carmel. Her mother agreed to
her desire with reluctance and insisted that she may complete her education.
Her proficiency as a pianist increased and she won several prizes at the Dijon
Conservatory of Music.
At the age of nineteen, she read St. Therese’s ‘Story of a Soul’ and
became more convinced of her calling to Carmel. She was received into the
Carmel of Dijon on 2 nd August, 1901, and made her profession on 11 th January,
1903. She cultivated a deep devotion to the mystery of the indwelling of the
Trinity. On 21 st November, 1904, she wrote her famous prayer of the Trinity.
By March 1905, she experienced the first symptoms of Addison’s at the young
age of 26, from which she died on 9 th November 1906. She was beatified on 25 th
November 1984, and was canonized in 2016 by Pope Francis.
One of the things that she taught her friends and family from the convent
was that our heaven begins now. That ‘the definition of Christian hope. ‘It’s
not something that we just, a kind of hope for or long for in the future, but if we
have grace, the grace of God in us, our heaven begins now, and will be fulfilled
later.’ She teaches the eager seeker how to grasp the passing moments, dramatic
or drab and plunge down below their surface to the underlying depths where
God is waiting to be found.
