Prayer to the Holy Trinity
by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, Carmelite
O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me to forget myself entirely that I may be established in you as still and as peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity.
May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of Your Mystery.
Give peace to my soul; make it Your Heaven, Your beloved dwelling and Your resting place. May I never leave You there alone but be wholly present, my faith wholly vigilant, wholly adoring, and wholly surrendered to Your creative Action.
O my beloved Christ, crucified by love, I wish to be a bride for Your Heart; I wish to cover You with glory; I wish to love You… even unto death!
But I feel my weakness, and I ask You to clothe me with Yourself, to identify my soul with all the movements of Your Soul, to overwhelm me, to possess me, to substitute Yourself for me that my life may be but a radiance of Your Life. Come into me as Adorer, as Restorer, as Savior.
O Eternal Word, Word of my God, I want to spend my life in listening to You, to become wholly teachable that I may learn all from You. Then, through all nights, all voids, all helplessness, I want to gaze on You always and remain in Your great light. O my beloved Star, so fascinate me that I may not withdraw from Your radiance.
O consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, come upon me, and create in my soul a kind of incarnation of the Word: that I may be another humanity for Him in which He can renew His whole Mystery.
And You, O Father, bend lovingly over Your poor little creature; cover her with Your shadow seeing in her only the “Beloved in whom You are well pleased.” (Mt. 17:5)
O my Three, my All, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, Immensity in which I lose myself, I surrender myself to You as Your prey. Bury Yourself in me that I may bury myself in You until I depart to contemplate in Your light the abyss of Your greatness.
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, a Discalced Carmelite nun and faithful daughter of St. Teresa, was lead throughout her short life to a deep and intense awareness of the indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity in the human soul.
Consumed by this knowledge and experience of the God who dwelt within her, St. Elizabeth, in the providential plan of God for the benefit of the Church, of Carmel and of all the sons and daughters of God, left written a short series of manuscripts where she describes the work of God in her soul. She became aware of the particular mission that was hers: “I think that in Heaven my mission will be to draw souls by helping them go out of themselves to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within that will allow God to communicate Himself to them and transform them into Himself.”
We can find in her writings, three things necessary in order to travel on the interior road that leads to that place within our soul where we find nothing else but God alone:
forgetfulness of self
a life of intense prayer
interior and exterior silence.
Through the intercession of St. Elizabeth, may God increase in us these necessary dispositions and lead us ever forward on the journey towards Him whom we know loves us!
Drawing us Within….
St. Teresa of Jesus and the Holy Trinity
Although St. Teresa had an extraordinary mystical experience of Christ--and indeed of the Blessed Trinity-- within her soul, for those who are in the state of grace, the same wondrous reality dwells within them. What a ineffable Gift to savor as we celebrate the Mystery of God, One in Three Persons! Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit!
In her Autobiography (Life) she writes:
Once while I was reciting with all the Sisters the hours of the Divine Office, my soul suddenly became recollected; and it seemed to me to be like a brightly polished mirror, without any part on the back or sides or top or bottom that was not totally clear. In its center Christ, our Lord, was shown to me, in the way I usually see Him. It seemed to me I saw Him clearly in every part of my soul, as though in a mirror. And this mirror also—I don’t know how to explain it—was completely engraved upon the Lord Himself by means of a very loving communication I would not know how to describe. I know that this vision is very beneficial to me each time I remember it, especially after receiving Communion…
I think this vision is advantageous to recollected persons, in teaching them to consider the Lord as very deep within their souls; such a thought is much more alluring and fruitful than thinking of Him outside oneself, as I mentioned at other times. And some books on prayer tell about where one must seek God. Particularly the glorious St. Augustine speak about this, for neither in the market place nor in pleasures nor anywhere else that he sought God did he find Him as he did when he sought Him within himself. Within oneself, very clearly, is the best place to look; and it is not necessary to go to Heaven, nor any further than our own selves; for to do so is to tire the spirit and distract the soul, without gaining as much fruit.
Life 40 nn. 5-6