Little-known saint shows the way to unshakable peace

What is it like to live with a constant awareness of God’s presence?

My favorite description comes in this traditional hymn:

No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

An unshakable peace comes from resting in God’s love — at least, that’s what the saints tell us.

But for me, unfortunately, my peace is all too shakable. All it takes is a child having a meltdown or meandering out of bed an hour after bedtime, and there it goes.

That’s why I’ve been so grateful lately to find out about St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, a Carmelite nun who is considered a “spiritual sister” of St. Therese of Lisieux. Her feast day is November 8.

Put it this way: If you love Story of a Soul, you will love the writings of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity.

The best place to start with her writings is Claire Dwyer’s This Present Paradise, a beautiful devotional based on her spirituality.

Her secret to peace

The heart of her mission can be summed up in Dwyer’s words:

“St. Elizabeth’s specific mission is to help us discover the love of the Trinity dwelling in souls — our heaven, beginning even now on earth.”

Or as St. Elizabeth herself said shortly before her death at age 26:

“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.”

Her “secret” to joy and holiness was to make inside her soul an “unchanging dwelling place … in the midst of the world” where God always lives, ready “to fill you to overflowing with His graces, to transform you in Himself.”

Her ability to retreat into this sanctuary whenever she needed God to strengthen her transformed her earthly life into “already an anticipated Heaven.”

Even if we’re not in a convent …

What makes her message so relevant for those of us not living in a Carmelite convent was her ministry of spiritual counsel through writing letters — an apostolate of friendship. She wrote hundreds of letters to her family and friends after she entered Carmel, gently sharing with them her way of loving God and finding lasting peace.

Thanks to her letters, the rest of us can get a glimpse into the “inner heaven” she maintained in her soul, through all her highs and lows. And through her writings and her example of prayer and love, we can find our own way to build this inner sanctuary, a place to which we can retreat and rest with God at any time.

Alone, it’s all too easy for storms to shake our inmost calm. But when God gives us his grace, a supernatural ability comes to us, far beyond anything we can do on our own. Then we find the strength to hold onto peace, long after we think we can.

This article was written by Theresa Civantos Barber for Aleteia.