HYMN OF ADORATION -  Part I

1. These notes follow on from the previous Update and there is no introduction. The material is centred on §43 of ‘Heaven in Faith’ [2], and is suitable for meditation. The whole of ‘Heaven in Faith’ was inspired, but this part portrays Sr Elizabeth, as her own self, at her most profound and repetitive best; presenting one with a myriad of nuances on love. Inevitably, these notes are, to some extent, repetitive also.
2. Attention is drawn to 3 minor works on ‘The Beatitudes’, ‘Do you love Me?’ and ‘The gifts of God’ written as background material to these notes, which may be helpful. These are not referred to directly. Look for these in the third table of the ‘Index Page’ of this Web-site.
3. The text of Heaven in Faith included in CW1 has been used for references in these notes. The source of the translation used, is either CW1 or MPA: in some instances, these translations have been modified by the site owner. Note that the text of Heaven in Faith given in the 1947 translation of MPA is incomplete.
4. Although the phrase Praise of Glory, referred to in these notes, is taken from St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians: specifically (v.1:12); this update is neither about the theology of St Paul nor his Epistles.
5. Where reference is made to quotations from Holy Scripture, any interpretation given in these notes, is that believed (by the site owner) to have been intended by Sr Elizabeth.
6. The opinions expressed are those of the site owner and as such may not be assumed to reflect or to represent the official teaching of Holy Mother Church at any time past or present, neither are those opinions intended in any way as criticism by the site owner of Holy Mother Church or her pastors.


A PRAISE OF GLORY IS ...

Proposition 1 .. (1st Part)
A Praise of Glory is a soul that dwells in God [3], that loves Him with the pure, disinterested love [4], which does not seek self [5] in the sweetness of this love, a soul that loves Him above all His gifts [6]; and even if she had received nothing from Him, would have loved Him, and desired good for the Object of her love.

A soul that dwells in God. The ‘discovery’ that the Holy Trinity dwelt in the soul made a never-to-be-forgotten impression upon Elizabeth. “The Trinity - this is our dwelling, our “home,” the Father’s house that we must never leave.” [7] Yet, this is only part of the wonder: “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God” (1Jn 4:15) so, “Let us make a dwelling for Him in our soul that is wholly at peace” [8]. Life in Christ begins for every Christian with Baptism: it transforms their life – “God dwells in our souls” [9]; because we receive the faculty of love.. Baptism completes us, for as St Augustine phrased it, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart has no rest ‘til it comes to Thee”. Living in and by Christ, we live in and by His Love: “the love of Christ poured into our hearts by His spirit dwelling in us” (Rom.5.5) [10]; because the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love, dwells in us in a special way, with all His gifts.(1Jn 4:13) “Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of the faithful. Kindle in them the fire of Thy Love”; because it is only through His Love that our love is lifted from a natural to a supernatural level. Our Blessed Lord made this point in the allegory of the Vine, “I am the Vine, you are the branches.” (Jn. 15:4) He also said that the vine dresser would prune the branches, that those that fruited might fruit more abundantly. In other words give glory to God. As Sr Elizabeth would have said, “It is so simple”: love God, feed that love with the Eucharist and Praise the Glory of God through Jesus. Children do not try to hide their pleasure at Holy Communion, and Jesus shows His pleasure through the radiance of their faces [11]. Hence Sr Elizabeth made it clear, from the outset, that any Christian in a state of grace, is able to fulfil the purpose of their creation by giving glory to God the Father through, in, and with, Jesus. It is a beginning, but only a beginning, for they have the potential to be a Praise of Glory.

That loves Him. “I have given You my heart, a heart that thinks and only lives for You, a heart that loves You to the point of dying of love” [12] “God is Love” (1 Jn 4:8); God created each one of us, in His Love; holds all of creation in being, in His Love; and “so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son” (Jn 3:16). Jesus said of Mary Magdalen, “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much” (Lk.7:47).

Why did God make us? “To know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him, in this world; and to be happy with Him forever in the next”. [13] “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole mind, with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength.” (Mark. 12:33).

We must love Him with our heart. Our principal affection must be for Him, we must detach ourselves from anything which reduces that affection. We should love our neighbour – but note: ‘for His sake’, and ‘ourselves’ for His sake. We must love Him with our mind: to know Him. We were made for God alone. He should be always present in our thoughts, we should occupy ourselves with the things of God, and we should show forth God in our speech. We should also seek instruction on our faith. We must love Him with our soul, to serve Him: ready to sacrifice everything for Him – wealth, honour, life itself; prepared to renounce everything, to suffer everything, to lose everything, rather than break the commandment to love Him. Our love for Him must raise us above all pleasures of sense, all human respect, all human fear, all promises and threats. We should live in the belief that to lose all for God’s sake is to gain all: “Whosoever shall lose (his life), shall preserve it.” (Lk17:33). We must love Him with all our strength; unbounded love: our intentions, actions, prayer, piety; our frequenting the Sacraments, works of charity, suffering the pains and sorrows of this life.

“Let us love God: because God hath first Loved us.” (1 Jn 4:19).

Yes, God expects our love [14], a love of welcome into our souls, a love of awareness of His presence, a love of attention to Him both in prayer and penance: in fine, a love of all creation. Sr Elizabeth struggled to express her overwhelming love for Jesus: “He is my infinite (“and in the infinite one can always go further still [15]), in Him I love, I am loved (by “my friend of every moment” [16]), and I possess All”[17]. She used Sr Thérèse’s inspiration of a little child going to its Mother as the only way to express her love for Jesus while lying in His arms [18]. “If only you knew how well He understands” [19]; “one has to be so simple with God, Who is so good and so kind” [20].

“We love God with His own Love.” [1,bis]. “It is such a simple thing to love. It is a matter of accepting all His desires, just as He accepted all His Father’s desires” [21]. We would understand by ‘His desires’, His Will or His word. “If anyone love me, he will keep My word.” (Jn 14:23); the Commandments and Beatitudes, together with the Precepts of Holy mother Church and the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy are replete with examples of how to keep His word and, therefore, how to love Him. Examples, which address God, our neighbour, and our-self, and which should all be performed with our love, as servants doing the Will of God from the heart (Eph.6.6): that is, by, in, and with His Love; and offered to God through Jesus. “He that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not”. (1 Jn 4:20). Jesus commended to us the spontaneous act of the ‘good Samaritan’(Lk.10:30): Sr Elizabeth wrote, “When some great suffering or some very little sacrifice is offered us, oh, let us think very quickly that “this is our Hour,” the hour when we are going to prove our love for Him.” [22]. We sometimes forget that the ‘reward’ for doing His Will in the Beatitudes (say) is here-and-now: for the ‘soul dwells in God and loves Him’. Sr Elizabeth expressed this as a syllogism, I have found my Heaven on earth, since Heaven is God, and God is [in] my soul [23].

With the pure, disinterested love. “Love inclines the will towards good, towards God” [24]. Love is giving oneself completely and selflessly to another – ‘giving’ means anything and everything, even life itself. The rule for human behaviour is given in St Paul’s Song of love: Love is patient, is kind: … endureth all things. (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

A pure love is unalloyed love for God: unmixed with anything. It is an end in itself: so that if we find ourselves tiring in that love, then it could not have been pure. Only God knows if our love for Him is pure, which develops our humility and trust in Him. However, conforming strictly to that definition of pure love would hardly give glory to God for His creation, which He found ‘very good’. God is not competing for our love; and because one may not compare the ‘Creator’ and His ‘creation’, neither may one compare or contrast love for God with love for one’s neighbour. St John of the Cross refers to ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ [25]: creation is loved as an ‘effect’ through God as the ‘cause’ and not vice-versa. To love our neighbour for God’s sake: i.e., to love him through God; does not invalidate pure love, for God is the primary object of our love. In fact, loving him through God increases our love for him. Since he was created by God, his person: as distinct from his qualities, is infinitely worthy of our love. Augustine Baker uses the word friendship when referring to the love of our neighbour [26] because our love is terminated in God alone; highlighting the fact that we love nothing, but Him, or for Him. In no way does this demean the quality of our love, as evidenced by Holy Scriptures, which is replete with references to friendship: “Thy friend, whom thou lovest as thy own soul” (Deut. 13:6); “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).

Love for our self, self-love, is understood to mean a love which begins and ends in ourselves, and so is unacceptable. We love ourselves in moderation in order to be able to give glory to God, we practice utter forgetfulness of self: we feel nothing. “One does not live any more in one’s self when one truly loves, because one feels the need to forget one’s self unceasingly” [27] “We are what we love. If we love God in whose image we were created we discover ourselves in Him and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which we were destined in our creation.” [28]. In our desire to love God, and our neighbour for His sake, we must guard against insidious forms of self-love: the obsession that both love and the beloved, are treated as possessions; and of jealousy because God appears to be purifying our neighbour in a different manner to ourselves. Even if we forget ourselves, and are not possessive, our love is still only ‘pure’ at the human level: to think otherwise is self-love in another guise; and God has to complete the purification process in His own way. Our love has its source in God – He alone can increase it; He alone controls our feelings of affection and joy: if we stay united to Him. “We should have no other ideal than that of our being conformed to this divine model: in complete self-contempt, if we always had the eyes of our heart fixed on Him” [29]. As we come to love Him more, and we give of ourselves more completely to Him, we no longer question whether we love, but we leave our loving to Him – our love is then becoming more pure. We abandon ourselves to Him, as a child in his arms with our head on his Heart; not for a short time, or at intervals, but for always.

If we know, love, and serve, God in this world, then Heaven is our reward for eternity. Obviously, we had better do what God wants, otherwise we will not be eligible for the promised reward which we desire! This is a good example of self-love because our motive for loving God is ‘self’, and not ‘God’. Firstly, let us love God solely for His glory, then in faith we know that the reward of happiness is ours because God has so promised. This is pure love, because our interest, which God approves of, is of secondary importance to the primary motive of giving glory to Him. Suppose though, that we genuinely hand over to God what the future holds: we invite God to accept any merit that we may have acquired, for His use [30]. Before we take this irrevocable step, let us remember that our gift to God is just that: the content of the gift is then no longer ours. This is disinterested love: a phrase that could be thought unfortunate, because we are not interested in a gift which God originally gave us. Of course the disinterest is not directed toward the loved one but toward self. Sermons on disinterested love often liken the Kingdom of God to a marriage feast, and are based on (Lk. 14:8,9) and (Prov. 25:6,7). A wonderful example of disinterested love is the Heroic Act of Charity in which we can offer to God any merit, that He has given us, for the relief of suffering of the Holy Souls. It is usually associated with the Eucharist. It is heroic, because whoever makes this act is willing to accept the undiminished pains of Purgatory for the good of his neighbour.

Which does not seek self in the sweetness of this love. At some time in their lives most people, rich and poor alike, experience ‘sweetness of love’ un-admixed with self, when truly giving of themselves to a loved one. It beggars description. The same is true with “sweetness of love” in the supernatural setting of ‘Heaven in Faith’, only here it gives rise to mystical imagery: an attempt to create a feeling for the ineffable. This is to be found in many mystical authors: in particular, the works of Ruysbroeck and St John of the Cross are highlighted by Fr De Meester’s References. Sr Elizabeth had started to read the St John of the Cross’ ‘Spiritual Canticle’ while in the novitiate [31] and she had loaned her copy to Guite [32]. Hence Guite would quite likely have been familiar with the phrase “the sweetness of love” which occurs in St John of the Cross’ commentary [33]. However, it is less likely that she would have been familiar with Ruysbroeck.

One may posit that the soul is in the illuminative way, ‘loving God with a pure, disinterested love.’ There is no contradiction in terms here, the soul does not have to be in the unitive way, provided it loves God to the full measure, revealed to it by Him. Each soul is treated individually by God and progresses at its own rate towards the summit of the Mount of Perfection. His grace potentially activates gifts of the Holy Spirit residing in the soul. If the ‘prompted’ soul freely chooses to turn more towards God, charity arises in the mutual union of God and the soul and further purification takes place in this bond of Love. The gift of fortitude helps the soul undergo the suffering of that purification. This is accompanied by a desire to glorify God in her love, which is so sweet [34]: the foretaste of Heaven. “Sweetness” is an attempt, agreed by most mystics, to describe the feeling created by God in the soul, attendant on union: St John of the Cross wrote that it was greater than the aroma of balsam [35]: he uses the same aroma for the acts of will responding to the graces of God, in the Spiritual Canticle [36]. He also suggested that the Vine feeding the branch in a virtuous soul supplied it with a sweet tasting wine [37]. Finally, when lasting union is achieved, the soul experiences God “with such great sweetness” [38].

St John of the Cross is careful to point out that here on earth we are unable to taste the essence of God. Therefore whatever we taste, or think that we taste, it is not God. He encourages us to respond to the sweetness, to keep us aware that He is the ultimate goal: as we are drawn closer to Him so we are progressively purged of both the need, and the desire, for that sweetness. St John uses the difference between the ‘feelings’ and the ‘will’ of the soul; to point out that the soul would feel quite happy to stay where it was in delectable sweetness, but the operation of the will causes the soul to seek God, and God alone. Hence the love of the soul is undefiled, since ‘the soul does not seek self in the sweetness of its love.

A soul that loves Him above all His gifts. Sr Elizabeth is asking us to think ahead, as a preparation for spiritual marriage. The phrase is a challenge for everyone. It is redolent of ‘The Spiritual Espousals’ of Ruysbroeck, who illustrated his work with many, easy to follow, analogies as well as using mystical imagery. He used this phrase at the end of a discourse centred on the preparation for the Marriage Feast (Matt.25:6) [39]. “At midnight there was a cry made: “See the Bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet Him.”” Ruysbroeck assumes the Bridegroom to be Jesus, and he looks at the 4 elements in the cry: which are treated here in brief. We “See” supernaturally by loving God in the light of His grace: we are in a state of grace, free of mortal sin. “The Bridegroom is coming” and we are continually preparing for this. He came 2000 years ago on earth; He comes everyday in our souls; and He will come again at the Judgement. Love for Christ, our desire, and our intention, to meet Him; compels us to “Go out” practicing ‘virtuous activity’ in humility: observing the Commandments, and practicing the Beatitudes with respect to ourselves and our neighbour. The Bridegroom may be far off for all we know, but we send ‘messengers’ to inform Him that we are on our way. These messengers are our gifts to Him: gifts of ‘love’, ‘intention’, and ‘desire’. He knows that we will ‘go out’, and He sends gifts to us. How wonderful are His gifts: the gift of Himself, the gift of ‘Heaven on earth’ with the promise of eternal life, and grace to inform the infused virtues in the soul. As if to emphasize the point that our gifts to Jesus: including the gift of ourselves; originated with God, Ruysbroeck noted that we should love God above all these gifts.

The exchange of gifts has taken place and the last part of the quotation, “To meet Him” is realised: the meeting of the Bride (the soul) and Bridegroom (Christ) takes place. In the words of the Catechism, the soul must truly, “know, love, and serve” God. The soul must be assiduous in its ongoing preparation for eternal life; God must have a pre-eminent place in its thought and love; and the soul must display great ardour for God alone [40]. Ruysbroeck suggests that the soul at this level of perfection will be moved by an insatiable desire to ‘know, love and serve’ God more perfectly; and, as an analogy to illustrate this he uses the meeting of Jesus with Zacheus (Lk.19:1-10). This aptly illustrates our desire to see Christ as well as Him coming to stay awhile with us in our souls. “Come down quickly, for I must stay at your house today”. “Come down quickly”: the quick descent represents our loving desire to be lost in Love. When a soul has both the love and the desire to live in Him, then it is already living in Him and He in it. Jesus fuels the desire with His gifts: gifts without limit in His munificence. The soul responds by giving itself more to Him which is only possible as it becomes further transformed in Him: as it rests in Him. The soul rests peacefully, breathing the air of Love; and with its desire to be further transformed in Him, fuelled by his gifts. This is an acceptable desire of self, for although it starts with the soul, its primary purpose is the glorification of God. As Sr Elizabeth noted, quoting Ruysbroeck, the soul loves Him above all His gifts [41].

We must not lose sight of the fact that the gifts of God are to enable the soul to live at the supernatural level, so that loving God above His gifts does not mean that His gifts are superfluous. The gifts not only sustain purity of love, they further enable the Holy Spirit to flood even the deepest recesses and darkest corners of the soul with His Love; thereby increasing the love of the soul, which can only love Him with His own Love.

And even if she had received nothing from Him, would have loved Him. This translation is slightly different from that in MPA and CW1 [42] To begin with, let us rule out the possibility of having ‘received nothing from Him’: for life itself, both natural and supernatural, is in His gift. The words, ‘even if’ imply that gifts have been received. Nevertheless, the phrase is still difficult of interpretation. By her own admission, Sr Elizabeth loved God with his own Love [43], so to love Him she must have received the gift of His Love. Furthermore, unless she had received the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Baptism, she would be unable to love Him at a supernatural level. Being less pedantic, if God had withheld the precious gift of a vocation to Carmel from Elizabeth, she always said that she would accept his Will and devote herself to caring for her Mother. Had she not learned this lesson very early in life when her Father died in her arms? However, these are examples at the natural level.

At a supernatural level, Sr Elizabeth was well aware that she had been guided by God to the very pinnacle of perfection: spiritual marriage. God made us for His Glory, and our free-will is part of that Glory. “I stand at the gate and knock” (Apoc.3:20): if we choose not to open the gate to Him, that is our free choice and to His Glory. Sr Elizabeth was conscious that she was writing for a Mother who, for whatever reason, could not always open the gate; but she could, and she always did, love Him. Loving Him is of paramount importance, as is the purity of our motive for loving Him. God knows why we do not always open the gate. Our human weakness is such that we often fall short of the ideal. God is never tardy in picking us up, and dusting us down; for He knows all about our weakness as well as about our intentions. He wants to help us: if we will “open the gate”; to make those intentions reality through His manifold gifts. If we love Jesus, then God lives in us and we live in God. Why is this so? Certainly not for our glory, perfection, or happiness: self-deprecating though that thought is. God really does wish those things for us: not for our sake, but for His Glory. God owes us nothing and without Him and His gifts we are nothing. Suppose then, that we have been Baptised, that we do our best to lead a morally good life, and that we know a rudimentary catechism. Notwithstanding, all this, assume hypothetically, that God has told us that we get no more gifts. If we truly love God, we do not waste what He has given us: we can still drink our fill of the water from the wells of salvation.

Even with disinterested love, our motives may only be pure at the human level and God must wish to purify us further. To take the previous example further, suppose that God decided to annihilate our souls when our bodies died, and that He had told us of His intention to do this. It may sound fantastic, but do read on [44]. We have no hope of eternal happiness; oblivion awaits us. How do we propose to spend those last moments before death when perhaps like Sr Elizabeth some of us may well be in excruciating unbearable pain? What shall we be thinking about? Our vocation of love was pointless, there is to be no reward. On the positive side, at least we shall cease to exist, there will be no experience of either pain or joy. Wait now, enough of this self-interest, let us try to see our position from God’s point of view. What rights did we have to eternal life or to that life of happiness? We are still alive: so has He abrogated His rights as our creator; has He ceased to work for His own glory; and has He released any one of us from our obligations as His creature? Whatever has happened to our pure, disinterested love? Can we, in all sincerity, make an Act of Love in the last moments of our lives?

God is Love, He created me in His image: I pray God that, whatever my situation at death, He will grant me the grace to make an Act of Love in His arms.

And desired good for the Object of her love. The spiritual richness of Sr Elizabeth’s first proposition is continued in this last phrase. The Object of our love is God, in Whom we dwell, live, love, and have our being. We see Him with the eyes of our soul [45] and, analogous with natural love, our happiness is linked to our ability to see: our faith; and our understanding [46]: “for no-one can love what he does not know” [47]. Ruysbroeck refers to a ‘coming of Christ into the soul’ [46,bis]: he is referring to an increasing apprehension as we keep our eyes open and focussed on Him, and a drawing closer to Him. St John of the Cross puts a corollary very expressively: ”He that loves becomes one with the object of his love, as does God with the one that loves Him; … for one lives more in the object of one’s love than in one’s self [48]. St Thomas Aquinas notes that “the cause of love must needs be love’s object” [49]; that "the beginning of love is the spiritual contemplation of goodness" [50]; that "there is a reciprocal desire to do good things for one another" [51]; and that "the Good is the proper object of love" [49,bis].

The “desire to do good things” comes from God (Js 1:17)[45,bis]: Who is all things to the soul, and the good of them all [52]. Sr Elizabeth notes that our desire is met “by accomplishing His Will” [53]: that is sharing His Cross in love, keeping the Commandments and observing the Beatitudes both in regard to ourselves and our neighbour. Note the careful wording, “desires good for the Object” , used by Sr Elizabeth. The Object of our love is God. God, the Summum Bonum, the Good which contains in itself all other good and desirable things [54]; that which completely satisfies the otherwise insatiable desires of our souls [55]. It is natural to give good things to the beloved, but how often have we struggled to find a suitable present for someone ‘who has everything’? Think of the problem of giving ‘good’ to God, Who is the Summum Bonum! All is not lost though, “for it is the intention which counts”: the ‘desire’. God created us for His Glory, and not for our happiness; yet He gave us the means while here on earth to Praise His Glory: and that is our ‘intention’. Good works done in love and with God in mind, facilitate our transformation in Jesus: God in me and I in God. We become one with Him, and are thereby drawn into the infinity of Love of the Holy Trinity: that extra ‘place at table’ depicted in the Rublev Icon.


Proposition 1 .. (2nd Part)
But how can we actually wish and will good to God except by accomplishing His Will, since this Will ordains all things for His greater Glory? Such a soul should surrender [56] itself fully, blindly to this Will, so that it cannot possibly will anything but what God Wills [57].

But how can we actually wish and will good to God except by accomplishing His Will, since this Will ordains things for His greater Glory? In the first part, Sr Elizabeth stated the requirement for a Praise of Glory. In the second part, she asks how we can ‘will good to God’, and proceeds to give the only answer to her question! The answer which Jesus gave, and which she had quoted in a letter 6 months earlier [58]: “ My meat is to do the Will of Him that sent Me” (Jn 4:34).

Examining her requirement piecemeal in the first part, has to some extent pre-empted examination of her answer. The requirement for a Praise of Glory was couched in terms of love and there is a danger that our feelings of reverence, humility, and nothingness, may thereby get overlooked [59]. Yes, we are adopted sons of God, and we are loved by Him; but we are also creatures, and sinners: we have no wish to be exempted from the privilege of adoration and service [60]. “It is written, the Lord thy God shalt thou adore and Him alone shalt thou serve” (Matt. 4:10). Although ‘adoration’ was not mentioned in the 4 propositions, Sr Elizabeth referred to ‘adore’, and ‘adoration’, at least 65 times, in her letters from Carmel; and, 10 times in ‘Heaven in Faith’. She was no stranger to the need to express both filial reverence and profound love in the Heaven of the soul [61]. How often we say in that perfect prayer: ‘The Our Father; ‘…Thy Will be done on earth,…’, knowing that we could be called upon at any time to do His Will. In the letter mentioned previously, Sr Elizabeth emphasized that every gift of His Will, no matter what, which we receive from Him is like a sacrament giving Him to us: as an “emanation of Love” [58,bis]. Therefore we glorify Him, we accomplish His Will, by accepting His gift in love. The Holy Spirit issues the invitation, for we have freewill: if we accept, then His grace will make possible the ‘accomplishment of His Will’; if we hesitate, or refuse, then we should question whether we do ‘wish and will good to God’, and whether we do wish to serve Him.

Such a soul should surrender itself fully, blindly to this Will, so that it cannot possibly will anything but what God Wills. 3 years previously, Sr Elizabeth had expressed this thought in a letter to a childhood friend, “Let us be simple … surrendered all the time, immolating ourselves minute by minute by doing God’s Will and not seeking extraordinary things” [62] and in a later letter [63] she quoted from her dear St Paul, “Walk in Jesus Christ, rooted in Him, and built up on Him, strengthened in faith and growing more and more in Him” (Col.2:6,7).

‘Surrender’ is commonly thought of, as placing ourselves and our future in the hands of an authority that we regard as an enemy: it is synonymous with defeat. Many prefer to die honourably, rather than to surrender. At a supernatural level, everything is topsy-turvy; having surrendered, we are treated like victors, long-lost friends at least, welcomed and garlanded. “There is not one but is bought with the Love and Blood of Jesus. The Priesthood of Christ makes Him our one Mediator Who is ever heard. We are made so rich that henceforward no grace is wanting to us” [64]. Like the man born blind, whose sight was restored by Jesus, let us also follow his example, “I believe, Lord. And falling down, he adored Him.” (Jn 9:38) Then, as now, actions speak louder than words. Sr Elizabeth puts this question to us, “Do you not think that when the heart is captivated by Christ, that heart will not then be able to surrender itself totally, right to the end?” [65] We are given the terms of surrender to Love: “to do the Will of God, in His presence, with Him, in Him, for Him alone; to live all the time in the way that He wishes; and to abandon our faults and infidelities to the consuming fire of that Love” [66]. Terms which represent an absolute, unequivocal, surrender of self [67]; so that the soul cannot possibly will anything but what God Wills. Note that the restriction on the soul is imposed by love; there is no question of a loss of free-will.

Sr Elizabeth uses the word ‘surrender’ in her proposition, because she assumes that the soul is at least in the illuminative way, and it longs for that day when the Holy Spirit will lead it to ‘surrender’. God is purifying the soul; in other words the will has little, or no, desire for anything apart from the Will of God, “When the will no longer follows its own dictate there will be absolute abandonment to the Will of the Father; when the imagination is silent, there will be “self”- forgetfulness. [68]. Sr Elizabeth brings out a subtle relationship: “Abandonment allows us to surrender to God [69]; and surrender is the sweet fruit of love [70]. Our surrender should be based on ‘faith’, not on ‘feeling’ [71]. Sr Elizabeth expressed her faith at 2 important milestones in her religious life: on the occasion of her Clothing, “Pray much for your little Carmelite, that she may be wholly surrendered, wholly given, and that she may give joy to her Master’s Heart” [72]; and at her Profession, “Please pray, won’t you, that I may be wholly surrendered, wholly vigilant, and that God may accomplish all He wills for my soul” [73]. This last wish is based on Fr Vallee’s remark that, “The entire Will of God for our souls is one of Love” [74].

“Oh really surrender yourself to Him, to His Love [75]; surrender to Him with confidence” [76]. In ‘Heaven in Faith’, Sr Elizabeth examines the implication of having truly surrendered to His Will. “I leave myself in His hands to do all He Wills in me” [77]. She is realizing her vocation: “My only occupation is loving” [78]. More to the point, “she appears on an equal footing with Christ because their mutual affection renders everything in common to both” [79]: in all but essence, that is. This theme occurs in the Spiritual Canticle [80], and in his notes on St John of the Cross’ commentary, Fr Venard [81] uses the heading “Love equalizes; love alone achieves surrender; habitual and loving attentiveness to God’s Will. Not unnaturally, she compares what is happening in her soul: her Heaven in Faith; with the activity of the Blessed in Heaven: as recorded in the Apocalypse of St John (Apoc. 4:8,10). The Blessed in Heaven unceasingly adore the Lamb; how can a Praise of Glory sing an equivalent ‘Hymn of Adoration’ in the Heaven of her soul? The activity in heaven is already being mirrored in her soul because God is being adored in Heaven, and in her soul. The form that adoration takes in her soul is suggested by the Holy Spirit. Now Sr Elizabeth was docile to the movement of the Holy Spirit, she continually abased herself in her nothingness, she was conformed to Christ in his suffering, and transformed in Christ to the highest degree possible for a creature on earth. In her, the activity was centred on ecstasies of love. She, herself, referred to these as ‘adoration’, an ineffable love attendant on being plunged into, and lost in, the beauty, majesty, and power of the Love of the Triune God [82]. Adoration, described by Lacordaire, “as the last effort of the soul which overflows with love and can ‘say’ no more”. Overflow is a sure sign that the soul is transformed in Christ to the full extent possible here-on-earth.  Through being docile to the Holy Spirit the soul had become nothing.  Yet, perversely, 'nothingness' actually prevents the overflow of Love, because the last vestiges of 'self' are deceptively hidden under the cloak of 'being nothing' [83].  Even the nothingness has to be surrendered, that the Praise of Glory may hymn its silent adoration.

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