Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

Élisabeth Catez was born on July 18, 1880, at the military camp of Avord, near Bourges, where her father, Captain Joseph Catez, was serving, and she was baptized in the camp chapel four days later. The family settled in Dijon in 1882. Her father died suddenly on October 2, 1887, and her mother, Marie Rolland, moved with her daughters to an apartment near the Carmel of Dijon. Élisabeth had a fiery and strong-willed temperament, and she grew into a gifted pianist who won prizes in her youth.

She made her First Communion in the church of Saint-Michel in Dijon on April 19, 1891, and from that day, the Holy See’s biography says, she struggled to master her temperament for love. In 1894 she made a private vow of virginity. Her mother opposed her vocation and forbade her to visit the Carmel, and she entered the Carmel of Dijon only on August 2, 1901, at twenty-one. She received the habit on December 8, 1901, with the name Elizabeth of the Trinity, made her profession on January 11, 1903, and received the black veil on January 21, 1903.

A few months after her profession the first signs of Addison’s disease appeared, an illness for which there was then no cure. In her last months she called herself Laudem Gloriae, “Praise of Glory,” and her prayer “O my God, Trinity whom I adore” sums up her spirituality. She died at the Carmel of Dijon on November 9, 1906, after nine days of agony, at the age of twenty-six. Her last words that could be understood were: “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life!”

Saint John Paul II declared her Venerable on July 12, 1982, and beatified her on November 25, 1984. The cure accepted for her canonization was examined in the diocese where it took place from 2011 to 2012, and Pope Francis approved it as a miracle on March 3, 2016. He canonized her in Saint Peter’s Square on October 16, 2016, together with six other saints, among them the French Brother of the Christian Schools Salomon Leclercq. In 1979 the Carmel of Dijon left the city for a hill near Flavignerot, about eight miles southwest of Dijon, and pilgrim groups come there to pray with the nuns. Her major relics are now kept in the church of Saint-Michel, her parish church in Dijon. The Carmelite Order keeps her memorial on November 8, and some calendars give November 9, the day of her death.

Her image is known chiefly from photographs. For her canonization in 2016 the Carmel of Dijon made a series of banners with her photographs and quotations from her writings for the church of Saint-Michel, and the Carmelite Father Didier-Marie Golay published an album of photographs, memorabilia and works of art, Sainte Élisabeth de la Trinité: Rayonner Dieu.

• Dijon, Church of Saint-MichelHer parish church, where she made her First Communion on April 19, 1891, and where her major relics are now kept.
• Flavignerot, Carmel of DijonThe monastery of her community, which moved in 1979 from Dijon to this hill about eight miles southwest of the city; pilgrim groups come to pray there with the nuns.