Last Retreat

22. “Be holy for I am holy.” 126 Who then is this who can give such a command? . . . He Himself has revealed His name, the name proper to Him, which He alone can bear: “I am Who Am,” 127 He said to Moses, the only living One, the principle of all the other beings. “In Him,” the Apostle says, “we live and move and have our being.” 128 “Be holy for I am holy!” It seems to me that this is the very same wish expressed on the day of creation when God said: “Let us make man in Our image and likeness.” 129 It is always the desire of the Creator to identify and to associate His creature with Himself! St. Peter says “that we have been made sharers in the divine nature”; 130 St. Paul recommends that we hold on to “this beginning of His existence” 131 which He has given us; and the disciple of love tells us: “Now we are the children of God, and we have not yet seen what we shall be. We know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him makes himself holy, just as He Himself is holy.” 132 To be holy as God is holy, such is, it seems, the measure of the children of His love! Did not the Master say: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”? 133

Elizabeth of the Trinity (2014-07-24). Elizabeth of the Trinity Complete Works, Volume I: I Have Found God, General Introduction and Major Spiritual Writings (Kindle Locations 3339-3353). ICS Publications. Kindle Edition.

27. “The Lord brought me into a spacious place, because He was gracious toward me. . . .” 159 The Creator, seeing the beautiful silence which reigns in His creature, and gazing on her wholly recollected in her interior solitude, is enamored of her beauty and leads her into this immense, infinite solitude, into this “spacious place” sung of by the prophet, which is nothing else but Himself: “I will enter into the depths of the power of God.” 160 Speaking through his prophet, the Lord said: “I will lead her into solitude and speak to her heart.” 161 The soul has entered into this vast solitude in which God will make Himself heard! “His word,” St. Paul says, “is living and active, and more penetrating than a two edged sword: extending even to the division of soul and spirit, even of joints and marrow.” 162 It is His word then that will directly achieve the work of stripping in the soul; for it has this particular characteristic, that it effects and creates what it intends, 163 provided however that the soul consents to let this be done.

Elizabeth of the Trinity (2014-07-24). Elizabeth of the Trinity Complete Works, Volume I: I Have Found God, General Introduction and Major Spiritual Writings (Kindle Locations 3408-3419). ICS Publications. Kindle Edition.

29. “Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis.” 171 God has said: “Be holy, for I am holy.” 172 But He remained hidden in His inaccessible [light173] and the creature needed to have Him descend to it, to live its life, so that following in His footsteps, 174 it can thus ascend to Him and become holy with His holiness. “I sanctify myself for them that they also may be sanctified in the truth.” 175 Here I am in the presence “of a mystery hidden from ages and generations,” the mystery “which is Christ”: “your hope of glory,” 176 says St. Paul! And he adds that “the understanding of this mystery” was given to him. 177 So it is from the great Apostle that I am going to learn how I may possess this knowledge which, in his expression, “surpasses all other knowledge: the knowledge of the love of Christ Jesus.” 178

30. First of all he tells me that He is “my peace,” 179 that it is “through Him that I have access to the Father,” 180 for it has pleased this “Father of lights” 181 that “in Him all fullness should dwell, and that through Him He should reconcile to Himself all things, whether on the earth or in the heavens, making peace through the Blood of His Cross. . . .” 182 “You have received of His fullness,” the Apostle continues, “you were buried with Him in Baptism, and in Him you rose again through faith in the working of God. . . . He brought you to life along with Him, forgiving you all your sins, cancelling the decree of condemnation which weighed on you: He abolished it by nailing it to the Cross. Despoiling Principalities and Powers, He victoriously led them away as captives, triumphing over them in Himself . . . ,” 183 “to present you holy, pure, and without reproach before Him. . . .” 184

31. This is Christ’s work in every soul of good  will and it is the work that His immense love, His “exceeding love,” 186 is eager to do in me. He wants to be my peace so that nothing can distract me or draw me out of “the invincible fortress of holy recolletion.” 187 It is there that He will give me “access to the Father” and will keep me as still and as peaceful in His presence as if my soul were already in eternity. 188 It is by the Blood of His Cross that He will make peace in my little heaven, so that it may truly be the repose of the Three. He will fill me with Himself; He will bury me with Him; He will make me live again with Him, by His life: “Mihi vivere Christus est!” 189 And if I fall at every moment, 190 in a wholly confident faith I will be helped up by Him. I know that He will forgive me, that He will cancel out everything with a jealous care, and even more, He will “despoil” me, He will “free” 191 me from all my miseries, from everything that is an obstacle to the divine action. “He will lead away all my powers,” 192 making them His captives, triumphing over them in Himself. Then I will have wholly passed into Him and can say: “I no longer live. My Master lives in me!” 193 And I will be “holy, pure, without reproach” in the Father’s eyes.

32. “Instaurare omnia in Christo.” 194 Again it is St. Paul who instructs me, St. Paul who has just immersed himself in the great counsel of God195 and who tells me “that He has resolved in Himself to restore all things in Christ.” So that I may personally realize this divine plan, it is again St. Paul who comes to my aid and who will himself draw up a rule of life for me. “Walk in Jesus Christ,” he tells me, “be rooted in Him, built up in Him, strengthened in faith, growing more and more in Him through thanksgiving.” 196

33. To walk in Jesus Christ seems to me to mean to leave self, lose sight of self, give up self, in order to enter more deeply into Him with every passing moment, 197 so deeply that one is rooted there; and to every event, to every circumstance we can fling this beautiful challenge: “Who will separate me from the love of Jesus Christ?” 198 When the soul is established in Him at such depths that its roots are also deeply thrust in, then the divine sap streams into it199 and all this imperfect, commonplace, natural life is destroyed. Then, in the language of the Apostle, “that which is mortal is swallowed up by life.” 200 The soul thus “stripped” of self and “clothed” 201 in Jesus Christ has nothing more to fear from exterior encounters or from interior difficulties, for these things, far from being an obstacle, serve only “to root it more deeply in the love” 202 of its Master. Through everything, despite everything, the soul can “adore Him always because of Himself.” 203 For it is free, rid of self and everything else; it can sing with the psalmist: “Though an army encamp against me, I will not fear; though war be waged upon me I will trust in spite of everything; for Yahweh will hide me in the secrecy of His tent” 204 and this tent is nothing else but Himself. I think that is what St. Paul means when he says: “be rooted in Jesus Christ.”