From Calvary to Heaven

The last visit to the parlour — Love and glory — Extreme Unction — The dying nun — A symbolic dream — The Angelus — Heaven — The Feast of the Dedication.

On Monday, October 29, Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity saw all her relatives in the parlour. Her two little nieces were brought to her, and their mother made them kneel before the grille. " Then, with a majesty which was quite impressive," says Madame Catez, " she held up her large crucifix, and after having looked lovingly upon them, gave them her blessing. Did she feel a presentiment that she would never see them again ? . . . We thought she was almost better — she spoke with greater ease, and talked to us for a long while, making her last requests. Doubtless God had pity on us, and let us fancy we should see our dear little Carmelite once more. She summoned courage to say to me as we made our farewell : c Mother, when the out-sister comes to tell you that my sufferings are over, you must kneel down and say : u My God, Thou didst give her to me ; I give her back to Thee. Blessed be Thy holy Name !" ' "

Next day, Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity could not leave the infirmary. " I visited her during the day,"

209 14 relates the Mother Prioress. " She was very pale, but happy. She pointed to a picture hanging on the wall, and said : c I was looking just now at our holy Mother, and meditating on her glory, and I thought that her poor little daughter would be a long distance from her in heaven. At the same instant it was said to me in the depths of my soul that St. Teresa's glory was less the reward of her great deeds than of her love, which was a great consolation to me. We have loved one another so deeply/ she said, pressing the crucifix of her profession day to her heart. c At the end of my life this teaching confirms all my special devotions. . . . Now I wish to live solely for love.

Thus prepared for the last stage of her life, which was to begin on that very day, she kept herself u in company with love " during the whole of her long and painful agony.

Madame Catez came on the evening of the 30th to ask after her daughter. The portress, who found the Mother Prioress in the infirmary, says : <c I took the opportunity of recommending several matters about which I was deeply concerned to Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity. Without giving me a precise answer, she replied affectionately, yet with simple and deep gravity. She might have been dictating her last testament, and she made me promises which have since been fulfilled. c Do not talk to me any longer, dear sister, you are tiring yourself,' I said ; ■ besides, I must take your message to your mother.' 'Tell her I am dying,' replied the invalid ; c I can say no more.' Stupefied at hearing her speak thus, I was impressed afresh by her energy in having so mastered her suffering in order to console me.

" When she was urged to lie down to rest she answered : ' Oh, no ! I am so exhausted that I am afraid I should never be able to sit up again.' "

Towards the end of Matins that night, the Prioress felt impelled to go and see the daughter she so dearly loved. The poor little one was awaiting her in an anguish of expectancy, fearing lest she might die in her Mother's absence, for she had been seized with a fit of shivering, which shook her in her bed. When her fears were allayed, and her sufferings calmed by remedies, she became drowsy. Towards three o'clock in the morning the Mother Prioress heard a slight noise, and hastened to the sick-bed. Sister Elizabeth, who was in acute pain, thought the longed-for end had come, and poured out her soul to the Mother who watched beside her. It was an hour never to be forgotten. Heaven seemed open to the gaze of the happy young nun so perfectly detached from all things and ready to respond to the summons of the heavenly Bridegroom.

Her weakness was extreme, and she received the last Sacraments again on the morning of October 3 1 — the vigil of a feast dear to her faith.

Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, who always took a special delight in the beautiful Office of All Saints, hoped that she was now to join the great multitude beheld by St. John before the throne of the Lamb.*

When the bells of the different churches sounded the Angelus at noon she exclaimed : u O Mother ! they are ringing for Laudem Glorias departure ! All the bells in the town sounded for my profession, and now they are pealing for my journey from the Church militant to the Church triumphant. Those bells will * Apoc. vii. 9.

make me die of joy ! Let me go, then I" and she held out her arms towards heaven.

Shortly before ten o'clock on the morning of All Saints' Day we thought her last hour had come. The community assembled in the infirmary to recite the prayers from the Manual. Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity recovered from her collapse, looked round to see that all were present, begged their pardon in touching terms, and then, in answer to a question asked she said : " Everything passes ! . . . At the end of life love alone remains. . . . We must do all for love, and unceasingly forget self ; the good God is so pleased when we are self-regardless. . „ . Ah! if I had always done so ! . . •" she added with a humility that went to our hearts. . . . Holy little one ! It was your own special grace you were revealing to us, and the secret of your rapid attainment of perfection !

The bells pealed all day, to the delight of our little sister, though she did not hear the divine summons she expected.

u If our Lord offered me the choice of dying either in an ecstasy or in the abandonment of Calvary, I should prefer the latter — not on account of its merit, but that I might glorify and resemble Him," she had confided to us a few days earlier. We reminded her of her wish, and she was consoled by the thought that it was about to be realized.

Faith, the strength of the martyrs, had so developed in her, through her firm resolution of believing that all things are sent to us by the hand of Love, that she was divinely sustained throughout her own martyrdom, with its helplessness and crucifying feelings of abandonment which recalled the dereliction of Calvary. " It seems as though my body were suspended and my soul in darkness," she said one day ; " but it is the action of Love, and knowing that, my heart rejoices."

This jubilation of the higher part of her soul did not prevent the sensitive part from adding to the trials the poor child was already enduring. It was delivered over to a kind of agony. " If I had died in my former state of soul, death would have been too sweet," she declared. " I depart in pure faith, and I prefer it, for I resemble my Master more closely, and it is more real."

Her longing to conform to God crucified made her welcome every fresh suffering with an angelic smile.

Towards the end of October her stomach, which was almost completely worn out, could hardly retain a few barley-sugar drops.¹ After All Saints' Day Sister Elizabeth took nothing. She could not even swallow a drop of water without suffering severe pain ; her mouth, which had been parched with thirst for the last three weeks, was dried up for want of moisture. The keen thirst, the torments of which we could do nothing to quench, was particularly trying to her. " It resembles what our Lord suffered on the cross," we told her. " Oh, yes ! it is delightful!" she exclaimed. <c His love is so infinitely tender, He never forgets anything that would make me share His pains !"

She received Holy Communion for the last time on November 1, as she could not swallow the smallest

2i4 THE "PRAISE OF GLORY"

particle of the Sacred Host in the state we have just described. When someone spoke to her of the great sacrifice the deprivation of her God must be to her, she answered : " I find Him on the cross ; it is there He gives me His life."

Her special love for cleansing her soul in the precious Blood of the Saviour had, for some years, given her a strong desire of receiving the Sacrament of Penance, a grace which our chaplain frequently renewed during this last trying week of her life. His words of comfort, which had so often benefited her during her religious life, supported her now through her severest trials.

Acute cerebral pains seemed to threaten meningitis, but the danger was averted by constant applications of ice which melted instantly on coming in contact with the intense heat she endured in her head ; she felt as if her brain were on fire. The poor child's eyes, terribly bloodshot, remained closed until the last moments. At times her speech was almost indistinguishable. It was then that we fully realized how deeply her soul, which had always mastered her physical state, was immersed in God. Hitherto, in spite of the pain that racked her, it was possible to understand the interior concentration of her mind ; but now she could hardly control her thoughts, yet divine union had become so habitual to her that it was maintained throughout her sufferings.

One of the nuns, seeing her state of prostration, was about to offer her some little encouragement, but was intensely surprised at hearing her murmur words whose depth revealed how fully, though in appearance all but dead, she lived to God. The same impression was felt by many others during those nine days. It was the grace left us by the little seraph, which remained imprinted in our souls, an ideal to be realized and never to be forgotten.

During her extreme exhaustion Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity was grateful to anyone who would recite the prayers known as " The Exercises of St. Gertrude " to her. She gave signs of finding comfort in them, and used to try to whisper, when they were ended, " Gertrude I" that the reader might resume. The sighs and transports of a heart thirsting for union fitly expressed her own yearning — " O Love ! Love ! tarry not to accomplish my nuptials ! . . . O Love ! hasten to satisfy my longing. . . . Finish what Thou hast begun !"

At the words : " Praise Thyself in Thee ; praise Thyself in me and by me !" she trembled with emotion and murmured : " Oh ! that is what I wish !"

M It was rather consoling than fatiguing to watch beside our little sister s sick-bed," writes one of her infirmarians. cc It was a real pleasure to go near her. Whenever I touched her innocent body, 1 seemed impregnated with the perfume of purity exhaling from it. So strongly did I realize our Lord's presence in her that I used to kiss her hands with the same reverence and respect that I should have shown to the crucified Jesus. She let me do so in all simplicity, exclaiming: c It is for Him !'

"The last moments before her holy death are always in my mind. She gave me the impression of a victorious champion finishing the race. She seemed to cry with St. Paul : c " I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course," ,# * I am a queen for all eternity !' "²

A queen she was already, as, with a striking dignity preserved until the very last, she climbed her Calvary at the right hand of the divine King. " Our Lord wishes me to go to my passion with the majesty of a queen," she had said some months before, when speaking of the way in which the brides of Christ should suffer. It was thus she bore her cross, always controlled by the divine strength which freed her from the commonplace cares usual to the sick.#

Her power of speech returned to her at intervals, and she made use of it to praise God and console her sisters. One day, a nun to whom she had confided the grace she had found in her name — Laudem Gloria — asked her to give her a name for herself to be her strength and guidance. On October 30, Sister Elizabeth caused a slip of paper to be put in her cell on which were written the words : " Abscondita in ~Deo"\ " I longed," the sister says, " to return to her to learn more of it, but her illness increased so rapidly that I feared 1 should never speak to her again. What was my astonishment, on November 5, when alone with her for a moment, to feel her clasp my hand and to hear her say in a gasping, almost dying, voice : ' You are Abscondita^ are you not ?' 'Yes !' ' Well ! it is Lie Himself Who gave you that name ;

f Col. iii. 3.³

I understood it. Oh, what a vocation ! Abscondtta in Deo means separation from all earthly things, a continual ascension to Him. What mortification, what prayer, what self-effacement that name requires ! I cannot tell you all, but I will help you from heaven,' and whenever I saw her she repeated : c I will help you.' "

" I shall never forget the impression made upon me by those last nine days," says the Mother Sub- Prioress. " On the one hand, I felt deeply touched at watching the poor body, perfectly unrecognizable, recalling the descent from the cross ; and on the other, I was struck with profound admiration for the soul so engrossed by the great mystery of the next world that it was impossible for her to describe what dawned upon her.

" Whenever our Mother entered the infirmary she was greeted by a smile of indescribable sweetness. Sister Elizabeth used to try to open her eyes to look at her, If the Mother Prioress seemed tired from watching by her sick-bed, she used to try to persuade her to rest, showing her anxiety about her Mother's health in numberless ways. Sister Elizabeth said to her one day : £ When I reach the good God, my first prayer will be for your health/ c No, no! pray for my soul first, that is much more urgent and important.' c Certainly the soul comes before the body, but I think that in heaven we shall be able to care for a great many things at once, for heaven is unity.' When our Mother did not come to see her, she used to say to me : c The victim is about to be sacrificed, and cannot do without the priest? "

The dear child used to find comfort in the help given her by Mother Prioress whose hand she held i 1 8 THE " PRAISE OF GLORY "

in her own, saying : <c Do not leave me, I stand in great need of your aid to finish climbing my Calvary. Oh ! to think that the time will come when I must traverse that mysterious, solemn passage alone !" " But our Lady will be there, and will take you by the hand ; you will have nothing to fear with such a Mother." " Yes, that is true ! Janua cceli will be sure to let little Laudem Gloria pass through. . . . But what a serious thing it is when we come to this state ! The thought of heaven thrills my soul, I seemed to have dwelt there for a long time, yet it is quite unknown to me ! . . . Oh ! how we ought to pray for the dying ! I would willingly spend my eternity near them to help them; There is something terrifying about death. . . . How formidable it must be for those who have spent their lives in pleasure and are attached to so many things in this world ! Even though I am detached from everything, I have an indescribable feeling, an intuition of the justice and sanctity of God. I realize that death is a punishment, and I feel so insignificant, so wanting in merit. . . . How we ought to encourage those in their last agony ! . . ."

The impressions of the dying nun, angelic in her innocence, added to the sufferings of her whole frame, resulting from the many complications of her disease, reminded us of her ardent wishes when, as a young girl, she offered herself as victim for the sins of the world. Her prayers had been heard, and it was evident to those beside that little bed — a genuine altar of sacrifice — that the High Priest was completing the oblation of His innocent victim.

" You are clothed with the Man of Sorrows," someone said to her one day. " You are completely conformed to Jesus crucified." " Yes, indeed J" she replied simply, in accents of genuine joy.

At times her appearance reminded us of certain pictures of the Holy Face ; her mournful expression touched and impressed us with reverence and recollection. At other times our little sister looked like a young child. She really had the character and simplicity of infancy, which developed during her illness and gave a wonderful charm to her whole person, even during her severest sufferings. We used to love to visit her and collect the sayings which seemed addressed to us from the threshold of eternity, so luminous and appropriate were they ; she appeared to see into our souls. We were surprised at her presence of mind during the acute pain of her last few days. She might have answered, as did the Venerable Marguerite du Saint Sacrement when questioned as to the help she received from God : " The Divine aid is immense !"

" O Love, Love !" Sister Elizabeth had cried after a violent crisis, "Thou knowest whether I love Thee and desire to contemplate Thee! Thou knowest also what I suffer ! Let it be for thirty, forty years longer if Thou wilt ; I am ready. Spend all my substance for Thy glory ; let it distil drop by drop for Thy Church." She remained in this disposition of soul until the end.

One evening her infirmarian, seeing that she was in torture, said to her : " You can bear no more, my poor little sister ?" " Oh, no ! I can bear no more 1" "Do you wish to go to heaven?" "Yes! Until now I have abandoned myself to Him, but I am His bride, and now I have the right to say to Him : ' Let us go!' We love one another so dearly, we are impatient to see one another. Oh ! how I love Him!"

One day her expression revealed that the state of her soul was changed — in fact, the darkness that had enwrapped her during those first days of agony had given place to light, but she was not permitted to explain the secrets heard in those regions so near to the vision of God.

A little later on she spoke of a happy dream she had had. " I saw a beautiful palace, all white and gold, and in this palace a bride. She was excessively tall, but so well proportioned that she was very graceful ; she had a matchless dignity." " Perhaps it was Laudem Gloria" " I don't know," she answered, smiling ; " I did not see her face, but she was beautiful — beautiful ! And the dream has made me as happy as if I were in heaven. " How often have we thought how it applied to our dear little sister, the bride of Christ developed by suffering, adorned with innocence and grace, about to be introduced to the courts of heaven for the eternal nuptials !

One morning she peered beneath her half-closed eyelids, leaning forward as though to examine something. "What are you doing ?" we asked her. " I see a palm," she said, putting out her hand as if trying to grasp it. " A palm ?" " Yes, a beautiful palm." c< Is it for you ?" " I don't know, but I am not selfish ; I should like each of my sisters to have one."

Later on she exclaimed, with a gesture that showed she saw herself surrounded with radiance :

" It is full of light ! It is grand ! . . . It is "

She could not finish her sentence.

On the eve of her death she found strength to express her happiness. At her request the doctor had just told her of the extreme weakness of her pulse. " In two days I shall probably be in the bosom of my 'Three '; is not that joy enough? Ldetatus sum in his qu<£ dicta sunt mi hi ! It is our Lady, full of light, pure with the divine purity, who will take me by the hand to lead me into heaven — that realm of dazzling brightness !"

She did not try to hide from the doctor the overflowing delight her faith produced. He was so astonished at her happiness that she tried to explain it to him by a comparison which led her to speak in a touching manner of the divine adoption, and the tears stood in the eyes of many of her listeners.

Exhausted by her efforts, she entered for the last time into her cherished silence. Yet we heard her murmur in a sort of chant : "I am going to the light, to love, to life !" . . . They were her last intelligible words.

The night between the 8th and the 9th of November was a very painful one, as suffocation was added to her other complaints, Towards morning her acute sufferings abated. Calm and silent, the wise and prudent virgin peacefully awaited the coming of the divine Bridegroom, aided by the prayers of her Mothers and Sisters who knelt around her. The bell of the convent sounded the first Angelus. The Queen of Carmel, present though invisible, succoured the child she dearlv loved until the hour when, all being finished, she was to conduct her to heaven. Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity, leaning on her right side, her head thrown back, her eyes wide open now and fixed upon a point slightly above our heads, seemed rather in ecstasy than in agony. Her face was wonderfully beautiful ; we could not look away from her, and she seemed to gaze upon the eternal hills already.

With this radiant expression she left us, without its being possible to say when she drew her last breath. All was over now ! . . . Laudem Gloria no longer sang on this earth ; our hearts sought her in the great furnace of love, the bosom of u the Three." She had said : " I shall hardly have reached the threshold of Paradise when I shall rush there like a little rocket, for a c praise of glory ' can have no other place to all eternity."

And it was the morning of a feast of a Dedication ! August 2, 1 90 1, had commemorated one of these solemnities.⁴ On that day Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity had consecrated herself to a life of perfection and praise on Mount Carmel. On November 9, 1906 (the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Saviour), she mounted with gladness to the house of the Lord, bearing her sheaves and singing : <c Glory be to God!"f and the first Office sung in the presence of her remains in the choir was another feast of a Dedication, that of the Churches of France, whose beautiful liturgy was chanted opposite this little " house of God," which had always reflected His divine glory.

How touching were some of the allusions in this majestic Office ! " The Lord has sanctified His tabernacle. My house is a house of prayer. ..."⁵

Was not Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity also " the stone hammered with many blows, polished by the chisel in the hands of the divine Sculptor "?⁶

Our hearts vied with one another in saying to her, in the words of Holy Church : cc O bride ! how blessed is thy lot ! Thou art dowered with the glory of the Father, filled with the grace of the Bridegroom, espoused to Christ, thy King !"t

For three days we enjoyed the pleasure of keeping her virginal body among us, of surrounding it with our prayers and loving veneration. The exteme alteration in her features revealed her martyrdom. She had indeed " spent all her substance " for her God, and passed from this world to her Father transformed into the image of Jesus crucified. Her dream was realized.

As soon as the news of her death became known in the town people crowded to Carmel, eager to look upon " the little saint," as everyone called her, and carrying with them numerous rosaries and medals. Everybody thought that any souvenir of her would bring a blessing with it.

Her funeral was a genuine triumph. An imposing circle of twenty-four priests surrounded the humble child who, retired and silent, had immolated herself for Holy Church and her consecrated Levites.

Numerous friends accompanied her to her last resting-place. They agreed in saying that their feelings, as they followed in procession, were less of mourning than of hope. For us, the pain of sacrifice seemed overweighed by the joy of having offered God a gift which we knew would be perfectly⁷ pleasing to Him. The divine peace shed upon our Carmel was both a pledge and a reflection of that into which our dearly-loved sister had entered for all eternity !

" I should like to keep myself, as a little vase, close to the divine source, so that I might communicate life to souls, by letting the waters of infinite charity overflow upon them," Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity had said one day.

The saintly child, plunged in the very ocean of eternal life, can now fully satisfy her heart's longing. We rejoice to contemplate her leading souls into the profound silence which wholly absorbs her in the embrace of uncreated Love, thus fulfilling her celestial " mission." By revealing what was the strength and happiness of her life in this earthly exile, our seraphic sister still teaches the divine science of intimacy with Him Who delights to be with the children of men,⁸ and Whose Heart gave utterance at His Last Supper to the burning words : " If any man love Me . . . My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him."f

Footnotes

1. Sister Elizabeth had taken nothing but milk since the beginning of her illness : a glassful sufficed for what she called 1 her four meals. Angel on earth as she was, she was nourished by I God, Who visibly communicated His divine strength to her. ↩

2. z Tim. iv. 7. ↩

3. She said to one of the nuns a short time before : " One night, when my pains were overwhelming, I felt that nature was getting the upper hand, but I roused my faith and said to myself, 'That is not the way in which a Carmelite should suffer !' Then I thought of Jesus in His Agony, and offering Him my pain to console Him, I felt strengthened. That is how I have always acted during my life — in every trial, small or great, I contemplate what our Lord went through resembling it, that I may lose my suffering in His and myself in Him." ↩

4. The Dedication of our Lady of the Angels, where the Seraph of Assisi received the Portiuncula indulgence, and where, according to St. Bonaventura, " he began the evangelical life with which he has inspired his whole Order," ↩

5. Office of the Dedication, ↩

6. Office of the Dedication. ↩

7. From the primitive text of Urbs Jerusalem heata. ↩

8. Prov. viii. 31. f St. John xiv. 25. ↩