Let’s kick off this month of incredibly strong female saints with one of our newer ones, St Elisabeth of the Trinity. She’s only been a saint since 10/16/2016 and I came to hear of her sometime in the mid 90’s.  And she’s not really an old saint from centuries ago, having died in 1906.  So, let’s learn a little about Elisabeth.

St Elisabeth (I’m using the original French spelling of her name since she was French)  was born on July 18th, 1880 in a military camp, since her dad was a captain.  He died when she was 7 and her family moved to Dijon, close to the convent of the Discalced Carmelites.  Elisabeth was a beautiful girl who could have easily been a concert pianist, she was that good! She had a normal life, going to parties and dances, dressing fashionably, singing in the church choir, and teaching catechism to the children of the local factory.  She had several marriage proposals, but turned them all down because she already knew at a young age that she wanted to join the Carmelites.  Her mom, however, made her wait until she was 21.

On 8/2/1901 she joined Carmel, and received the habit on 12/8/1901.  She was someone that was deeply contemplative, a mystic, who wrote extensively on the love of God. To be honest, I find a lot of what she wrote intimidating because it is so deep, it makes it hard to understand.  Almost 2 years after joining Carmel, she started having symptoms of Addison’s Disease, which at the time had not cure.  She suffered for 3 years with this very painful condition, until her death on 11/9/1906.

Now, let me tell you why I consider her such an important example for women today.

Like me, St Elisabeth had a fiery temper, and even threw temper tantrums as a child.  I’m not sure about you, but I used to lose my temper quite a bit when I was younger.  I mean, throwing stuff around, slamming doors, you know, the usual.  I didn’t throw temper tantrums as a child, but as an adult in my teens & 20’s, guilty!

Now, for St Elisabeth, all it took for her to start controlling her temper was to receive 1st Holy Communion.  She had a much deeper connection to God than I ever did, so she was able to understand things deeply.  For me, it took me meeting our Saint to have as an example to start really controlling my temper. She taught me to look to God, get really quiet, and be more observant of the world around me. And it was NOT easy.   

You may not think this is at all powerful or worthy of note, but it actually is.  If you are able to control your temper and not blow up at people at the slightest provocation, but instead get really quiet and think about what is going on, you are able to make better decisions.  You are also more likely to see things from a different point of view, that even though you may not agree with it, you’ll understand a whole lot better what other people are feeling and/or going through.  And if you can do that, then imagine how well you can get along with people. 

Now imagine if the world did this, and everyone learned to control their tempers and get quiet and learned to listen to each other.  Before you say I’m crazy, just imagine it.  You see it?

So, let’s learn to control our tempers and see how much we can change the world.