Today we celebrate the Memorial of St.. Elizabeth of the Trinity, who held a special devotion and understanding of the Most Holy Trinity and His Indwelling within each person's soul. The secret to her sanctity was to let herself be built up into a little house of God, where Christ could dwell within. She wanted her soul to be like a little vase that could be filled up with Him so that she could communicate this living water to her brothers and sister in the Church. In her letters she writes that “In the little sanctuary of my soul, so intimate, I find him at every hour of the day and night; I am never alone: my Christ is there praying in me and I pray with him. My whole practice is to entire within, and lose myself in those who are there! It is so simple. The Divine Adorer is within us, so we have his prayer; let us offer it, commune with it, and pray with his soul.
This is confirmed when Jesus reveals to us in Holy Scriptures that, "If anyone hears me calling and opens the door I will enter his house and have supper with him and he with me." (Rev. 3:20-21 )
Origen tells us in his notebook on prayer that is read for the Liturgy of the Hours on the Feast of Christ the King and known as 'Your Kingdom Come' that, "The Kingdom of God is within us, for the Word of God is very near, in our mouth and in our heart. Thus it is clear that he who prays for the coming of God’s kingdom prays rightly to have it within himself, that there it might grow and bear fruit and become perfect. For God reigns in each of his holy ones. Anyone who is holy obeys the spiritual laws of God, who dwells in him as in a well-ordered city. The Father is present in the perfect soul, and with him Christ reigns, according to the words: We shall come to him and make our home with him.
Thus the kingdom of God within us, as we continue to make progress, will reach its highest point when the Apostle’s words are fulfilled, and Christ, having subjected all his enemies to himself, will hand over his kingdom to God the Father, that God may be all in all. Therefore, let us pray unceasingly with that disposition of soul which the Word may make divine, saying to our Father who is in heaven: Hallowed be your name; your kingdom come.
Note this too about the kingdom of God. It is not a sharing of justice with iniquity, nor a society of light with darkness, nor a meeting of Christ with Belial. The kingdom of God cannot exist alongside the reign of sin.
Therefore, if we wish God to reign in us, in no way should sin reign in our mortal body; rather we should mortify our members which are upon the earth and bear fruit in the Spirit. There should be in us a kind of spiritual paradise where God may walk and be our sole ruler with his Christ. In us the Lord will sit at the right hand of that spiritual power which we wish to receive. And he will sit there until all his enemies who are within us become his footstool, and every principality, power and virtue in us is cast out.
All this can happen in each one of us, and the last enemy, death, can be destroyed; then Christ will say in us: O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory? And so what is corruptible in us must be clothed with holiness and incorruptibility; death will be cast out, and our mortality will be clad with the Father’s immortality, so that, as God reigns in us, we may truly enjoy the blessings of rebirth and resurrection. (See http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/loh/christthekingor.htm)
. Elizabeth of the Trinity cultivated the Kingdom of the Three wholly within the little cell of her heart and soul. She understood that we are to cherish our Beloved "whose name is Love" and who "dwells within us at every moment of the day and night, and that he asks us to live in company with him." The key is to give our fiat to Our Savior, who is the living water and the source of this unitive love. "Let us be in communion all the time with Jesus who wants to tell us the whole Mystery..He is always at work in our soul; let us be built up by him and may he be the Soul of our soul, the Life of our life, so that we may be able to say with St. Paul, 'For me, to live is Jesus Christ!' (Your Presence is my Joy, by Conrad de Meester)
This all points to the sublime truth that our souls are temples of the Holy Trinity. We must constantly be beckoning Him to come into our abode, in response to His constant invitations to come into His presence in an ever deeper level. We can realize this more readily by meditating upon Our Lady, who we know became, "a most holy Temple to Our Most High God, who by dwelling in her sanctified the whole creation and made our fallen nature godly."
In the Akathist prayer we honor Our Blessed Mother by proclaiming, "Extolling your birth-giving, we all praise you as a living temple, O Theotokos. For the Lord whose hand sustains the world, having dwelt in your womb, sanctified and glorified you, and instructed all people to cry to you."
Rejoice, tabernacle of God the Logos;
Rejoice, holy one, holier than the holies.
Rejoice, ark that was gilt by the Spirit;Rejoice, inexhaustible treasure of life.
Rejoice, precious diadem of godly kings;
Rejoice, honored pride of the pious priests.
Rejoice, the Church's unshakable tower;
Rejoice, the kingdom's unassailable fortress.
Rejoice, through whom trophies of victory are raised;
Rejoice, through whom enemies are defeated.
Rejoice, healing of my body;
Rejoice, my soul's salvation.
Rejoice, O Bride unwedded.
Rejoice, holy one, holier than the holies.
Rejoice, ark that was gilt by the Spirit;Rejoice, inexhaustible treasure of life.
Rejoice, precious diadem of godly kings;
Rejoice, honored pride of the pious priests.
Rejoice, the Church's unshakable tower;
Rejoice, the kingdom's unassailable fortress.
Rejoice, through whom trophies of victory are raised;
Rejoice, through whom enemies are defeated.
Rejoice, healing of my body;
Rejoice, my soul's salvation.
Rejoice, O Bride unwedded.
People: Rejoice, O Bride unwedded.
Because St. Elizabeth recognized that Our Lady like no other was drawn within into complete communion with Her Son in a perpetual Incarnation, she sought to enter into the soul of Mary and unite herself so deeply that, "Mary herself would overshadow her and carry her soul into the soul of her Son." Blessed Elizabeth wrote about Blessed Mother that, "She kept herself so little, so recollected in the presence of God, in the secret of the Temple, that she drew forth the good pleasure of the Trinity...the Father, stooping over this creature who was so beautiful, so unaware of her beauty, willed her to be in time the Mother of him of whom he is the Father in eternity."
As we journey towards plumbing the depths of the Indwelling within our souls, we pray that our hearts may be pure and open. We ask that St. Elizabeth of the Trinity help us by her stated mission: "In heaven, I believe, my mission will be that of drawing souls into interior recollection, helping them to go out of themselves, to cling to God through a movement which is wholly simple and wholly loving; and to preserve them in that great silence of the within, which allows God to imprint Himself on them and to transform them into Himself."
St. Elizabeth, we ask for your prayers and intercession, along with that of Our Most Blessed Mother of Mt. Carmel, in moving our hearts deep down into the abyss of the Holy Trinity, where He resides deep within the recesses of our souls. Amen.
