On August 7, 2010, St. Therese answered the prayer of Pope Francis, then Cardinal Bergoglio.  CNA reported that the Cardinal's press secretary, Federico Wals, gave an interview saying that on that date Cardinal Bergoglio had presided at a Mass at the shrine of St. Cajetan for the feast of his death.  After Mass he wanted to walk down the line of thousands of pilgrims, which sometimes extended 15 blocks, but was in such pain that he decided to go only two blocks before turning back.  But he prayed to Therese for a sign, and a man in the crowd suddenly handed him a white rose, saying

"This is the sign you are waiting for."  The Pope turned to his press secretary and said:

"Federico, Santa Teresita did not abandon me; I'm going to walk until the end of the line [of the faithful." . . . . Bergoglio's countenance changed; he was radiant and continued until the end.

Read the full story at "A history of little miracles - behind Pope Francis' devotion to Saint Therese" by Elise Harris.  Catholic News Agency.

The shrine (the tomb) of St. Therese in the little side chapel at the Carmelite monastery in Lisieux.  It was unveiled on the day of her beatification, April 29, 1923.  (Photo courtesy of Dee Cursi)

Ninety-three years ago, on April 29, 1923, Venerable Therese of the Child Jesus was beatified at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  At the same hour a special Mass was offered in the chapel of the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux.  The next day Marie of the Sacred Heart, Therese's oldest sister, wrote to their sister Leonie, describing vividly the ceremonies at Carmel and quoting from a telegram sent to the Carmelites from Rome to tell them about the beatification.  Read Marie's letter.

Photo Credit: Carmel of Dijon

The Vatican announced today that Pope Francis has authorized the canonization of Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, a young Carmelite who died at the Carmel of Dijon, France in 1906 at the age of twenty-six.  On Thursday afternoon, March 3, 2016, the Pope received Cardinal Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and authorized the Congregation to promulgate the decree recognizing as a miracle the cure of Ms. Marie-Paul Stevens.

Story of the Miracle

 Marie-Paul was teaching religion at the Institute of the Marist Brothers in Malmedy, in Belgium, in May 1997, when she began to have trouble speaking and other symptoms.  Some weeks later, after undergoing medical tests on a friend's advice, Marie-Paul discovered that she had Sjogren's disease.  As her illness progressed, the government asked her to retire early.  Many people were praying the novena to Blessed Elizabeth to ask for Marie-Paul's healing.  Although the patient received chemotherapy and other treatment, her health deteriorated.  As Marie-Paul moved closer to death, she requested to go on pilgrimage to the Carmel of Flavignerot to thank Elizabeth for giving her strength during her illness. This was the community of Blessed Elizabeth; the nuns moved in 1979 from Dijon to nearby Flavignerot.  On April 2, 2002 she prayed in the chapel of the Carmel and gave thanks to Elizabeth.  Afterward she rested by sitting on one of the rocks at the edge of the monastery's parking lot.  The two friends who had accompanied her were astounded when, all at once, she stood up, lifted her hands to heaven, and cried out in amazement and happiness "I am no longer sick!"  From that day on she has been well.

Marie-Paul Stevens, the Belgian woman whose cure was accepted as the miracle for the canonization of Elizabeth of the Trinity.  Photo credit: Carmel of Dijon.

History of the Inquiry into the Miracle

The diocesan process to examine this miracle with a view to canonizing Elizabeth was formally opened on July 11th, 2011 in the chapel of the Archbishop of Dijon, Most Rev. Roland Minnerah.  The vice-postulator of Elizabeth's cause, Fr. Antonio Sangalli, O.C.D. (also the vice-postulator for Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin and the postulator for the Servant of God, Leonie Martin, the sister of St. Therese of Lisieux), wrote a letter requesting the opening of the process, and the members of the tribunal were sworn in.  Three Carmelite nuns of Flavignerot were interviewed about the miracle.

The members of the tribunal traveled to Belgium to conduct several sessions of inquiry.  They interviewed more than 40 witnesses, including several physicians.  Everyone was amazed at Marie-Paul's healing and moved by Elizabeth's life and writings.  The successful closing of the process was celebrated at Vespers (evening prayer) in the chapel of the Carmel of Flavignerot (where Marie-Paul had prayed to Elizabeth) on August 25, 2012.  Marie-Paul Stevens herself was present at the solemn closing of the process together with several friends; members of the Chevignard family, descendants of Elizabeth's sister Marguerite, known as "Guite;" and friends of the Flavignerot Carmel.

Father Sangalli was then commissioned to present the voluminous dossier of the tribunal's work to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome, which again investigated the healing and recommended that it be recognized as a miracle.

About Elizabeth of the Trinity

Elizabeth Catez was born in 1880.  She entered the Dijon Carmel in 1901 and died there in 1906 at the age of twenty-six. She penetrated the depths of the contemplative life had a profound experience of the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in her soul.  Her spiritual influence has been growing deeper and wider since her death.

Elizabeth of the Trinity and Therese of Lisieux

Elizabeth is one of the earliest and most fervent disciples of Therese.  With her novice mistress, Mother Germaine of Jesus, she was deeply influenced by an early copy of Therese's Story of a Soul.  Her writings are full of quotations and echoes of Therese, easily recognized by those who know Therese.

The Jesuit theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote a book about Therese and Elizabeth: Two Sisters in the Spirit, showing how each one complements the contemplative life of the other.   

Elizabeth's Writings

The critical edition of Elizabeth's writings was edited in three volumes by the distinguished Belgian Carmelite scholar, Fr. Conrad De Meester, who has presented and interpreted Therese so brilliantly.  Two of the volumes, "Vol. I: General Introduction and Major Spiritual Writings" (also called "I Have Found God") and Letters from Carmel, have been published in English. 

I have spent much time meditating on and praying over Elizabeth's letters from Carmel and have found them the best way to get to know her and to understand her profound union with Therese and with God. I recommend them.

If you prefer to read a narrative of her life, consider He Is My Heaven:  The Life of Elizabeth of the Trinity by Jennifer Moorcroft.

 Pope St. John Paul II and Elizabeth of the Trinity

Elizabeth was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 25, 1984.  In his homily he said of her:

This contemplative, far from being isolated, was able to communicate to her sisters and to those near her the richness of her mystical experience. Her message is spreading today with a prophetic force.  We invoke her: the disciple of Teresa of Jesus and of John of the Cross, she inspires and sustains the whole family of Carmel; she helps many men and women, in the lay life and in the consecrated life, to receive and to share the 'waves of infinite charity' she received 'at the fountain of life.'

My translation, from the Vatican Web site.

Canonization of Elizabeth of the Trinity

The date of her canonization, which will no doubt take place later this year, is expected to be announced on March 15, 2016.     

Day Two – “Merciful Like the Father”

Our Lady of Hope, by Br. Mickey McGrath, OSFS
www.trinitystores.com

In Misericordae Vultus, Pope Francis writes:

"It is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy. Her language and her gestures must transmit mercy, so as to touch the hearts of all people and inspire them once more to find the road that leads to the Father."

“To touch the hearts of all people and inspire them once more to find the road that leads to the Father”—this is the mission of Therese.  She wrote “Jesus deigned to show me the only road that leads to this divine Furnace, and this road is the abandonment of the little child who sleepswithout fear in its Father’s arms.” 

Pope Francis:  “The mercy of God is not an abstract idea, but a concrete reality with which he reveals his love as of that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this is a “visceral” love. It gushes forth from the depths naturally, full of tenderness and compassion, indulgence and mercy.”

Therese: Sister Marie of the Trinity, speaking of an interaction with Therese, her novice mistress: 

“One day I hurt her feelings when I would not admit the faults she reproached me with.  Just then the bell rang for evening prayer.  On the way I began to be sorry for the way I had behaved, and I whispered to her “I was very naughty just now.”  She looked at me lovingly, her eyes filled with tears.  

“If you only knew what is going on within me! No, I have never experienced so vividly with what love Jesus receives us when we ask him to forgive us after we have offended him.  Hardly had you begun to express your repentance to me than I felt for you more love than before.  If such is the case with me, poor little creature that I am, what must God experience when the sinner returns to him?” 

Therese of Lisieux and Marie of the Trinity, by Pierre Descouvement.  Staten Island, New York: Society of St. Paul, 1997, pp. 75-76.

Pope Francis: “The Spouse of Christ must pattern her behaviour after the Son of God who went out to everyone without exception. . . .  in a word, wherever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy.”

Within the desert of Carmel, Therese herself was an oasis of mercy to the others.  She extended herself to the sisters who were older, ill, cranky, neglected, or isolated in any way, and she did so at considerable personal cost.

• At recreation, the two prized times a day when the nuns were permitted to talk, she went to sit by those who were neglected.
  
  
• Sister Marie of St. Joseph, who had a terrible temper (she was forced to leave the Carmel after the death of Therese), had been working alone in the linen room.  The nuns were so afraid of her that the prioress had not dared assign her a helper.  Therese asked to be assigned to aid her and rescued her from the isolation which had been her lot.  When Therese’s sister Marie confided how much trouble she herself had with Sister Marie of St. Joseph, Therese answered “Ah! if you only knew how necessary it is to forgive her, how much she is to be pitied!  It is not her fault if she is so poorly gifted; she is like an old clock that has to be rewound every quarter of an hour.  Yes, it is as bad as that.  Well, wouldn’t you have pity on it? Oh, how necessary it is to practice charity toward one’s neighbour!” 
  
• When her sister Pauline spoke to her of a nun who treated Therese badly, Therese replied “I assure you that I have the greatest compassion for Sister X.  If you knew her as well as I do, you would see that she is not responsible for all the things that seem so awful to us.  I remind myself that, if I had an infirmity such as hers, and so defective a temperament, I wouldn’t do any better than she does, and then I would despair; she suffers terribly from her own shortcomings.”
  
• When one of the novices said she couldn’t stand how a fussy elderly sister under whose supervision Therese worked was treating her, Therese exclaimed “You are complaining after a few words with her; what would you do if you had to listen to her all day long, as I do?  Now, you can do what I do.  It’s really easy.  All you have to do is mellow your soul with charitable thoughts; you then feel such peace that you no longer get irritated.”

St. Therese of Lisieux by those who knew her, tr. Christopher O’Mahony, O.C.D.  Dublin: Veritas Press, 1973.

Pope Francis:  We want to live this Jubilee Year in light of the Lord’s words: Merciful like the Father. The Evangelist reminds us of the teaching of Jesus who says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). It is a programme of life as demanding as it is rich with joy and peace.

•  One day one of Therese’s blood sisters asked her “How come you always smile so sweetly when Sister X speaks to you? It can’t be because ofany attraction because she is always making you suffer.”  “That is precisely why I love her and why I show her so much affection,” Therese answered.  “How could I prove my love for Jesus if I behaved otherwise toward those who hurt me?”

Pope Francis:  Merciful like the Father, therefore, is the “motto” of this Holy Year. In mercy, we find proof of how God loves us. He gives his entire self, always, freely, asking nothing in return. He comes to our aid whenever we call upon him.

How can we be merciful like the Father?  Ask for the grace of a deeper participation in Therese's mission of mercy.

Time of Personal Prayer

Pray as the Holy Spirit leads you.  Consider reading over paragraphs 12-14 of "Misericordiae Vultus” and pausing wherever your heart feels moved.

The Prayer of Pope Francis for the Jubilee

Click here to read the Prayer of Pope Francis.