Elisabeth, Daughter of Teresa of Avila

Elisabeth would surely have loved to celebrate her “holy Mother Teresa, whom the Church proclaims a victim of charity”. She prayed to her to “become a holy Carmelite.”

The Encounter

On the day of Elisabeth’s first communion, the prioress of the Carmel of Dijon gave her a holy card of Teresa of Avila with a few quotes written on the back. But Elisabeth’s real encounter with Teresa of Avila came about through her mother. Her mother had kept a notebook in which she had copied quotes from St. Teresa. When Elisabeth was about 14 years old, she gave herself forever in her heart, to Jesus alone. It was around this time that she read her mother’s little notebook. The quotes “God alone suffices” and “to suffer or to die” are those which Elisabeth adopts and uses most. These words serve as guideposts in her life and prayer : Elisabeth gazes at Jesus on the Cross, marvels at His love and wants to share all with Him.

At 18 years old, she discovered “the Way of Perfection” and became a disciple of Saint Teresa by assimilating the core of her teaching.
* Meditation : Elisabeth feels met in her deep and personal experience of God in prayer ; “it is God who does all”. She already appreciates the grace of contemplation.

* Detachment : Elisabeth’s Mother vehemently opposed her entry into Carmel. With a strong determination, Elisabeth is willing to endure all, in particular this opposition. In her dairy, she wrote : “I immolate my will to you”.

* Friendship : Elisabeth has a real delicacy of heart which desires the happiness of others. Elisabeth writes to her mother who is struggling with the absence of her daughter, now in Carmel : “I don’t see you but I love you for yourself, and I prefer your joy to mine”.

The Common Features

* A rich humanity and an affectionate nature
Yet an interior Presence keeps them free. Saint Teresa claims : “When I saw Christ, He printed His immense beauty in me... Similarly, Elisabeth writes, “I only need to recall a little bit this Master to find my freedom again.” At the end of her life, Elisabeth wrote to one of her mother’s friends : “The little Carmelite is very tired and her heart cannot remain silent; she is sending you all of it, all overflowing with tender affection”.

* A great strength of will
As a young child, Teresa showed a strong determination in her desire, “…to see God” in a foiled attempt at martyrdom with her brother Rodrigo. Elisabeth often uses the verb used by Teresa : “I want to spend my life...” but without voluntarism. They want to spend themselves in acts of love for Jesus.

* A taste marked for the infinity of God
Both of them are strongly attracted to all that is great. Teresa cries out : “O my infinite wisdom, and my infinite wisdom without measure, without limits!...O love, which loves me more than I can love, more than I can understand!” Elisabeth confides : “I live in love, I am immersed in it, I am lost in it. It is the Infinite, that infinity for which my soul is starving”. Both of them are aware of the time that passes whereas God is the Eternal One. St. Teresa wrote :

« All things are passing away
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing. »

Elisabeth often copies this quote and uses it for herself. In her own words, she writes, “He is the Unchanging One, He who never changes : He loves you today as He loved you yesterday and will love you tomorrow”.

Becoming Carmelite in the footsteps of Saint Teresa

In Carmel, Elisabeth finds Saint Teresa like a mother who had been with her, her entire life. The Holy Mother’s spirit resonates in the depths of her being, beyond simple understanding of the written word. From then on, the young Carmelite is consumed by the burning desires of her Beloved Master, like the Madre in her mystical espousals : The passion for Christ and the love of the Church, the thirst of the encounter with the Beloved One, forgetting oneself for the daily fraternal charity, the desire for the glory of God.

“I am daughter of the Church” claims Saint Teresa at the end of her life, while Elisabeth exclaims, “O Love, Love, exhaust all my substance for your glory ! May it exude drop by drop for your Church !”
The Holy Mother St.Teresa welcoming Elisabeth to Heaven, would recognize her daughter consumed by Love. And Elisabeth would repeat what she claimed as a postulant from her first steps in Carmel :

« The saint whom I prefer? Our holy Mother Teresa because she died out of love. »