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Some Quotations about our Carmelite Vocation from the letters of Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity:

"Oh, how powerful over souls is the apostle who remains always at the Spring of living waters; then he can overflow without his soul ever becoming empty, since he lives in communion with the Infinite!" (L124)

     "A Carmelite, my darling, is a soul who has gazed on the Crucified, who has seen Him offering Himself to His Father as a Victim for souls and, recollecting herself in this great vision of the charity of Christ, has understood the passionate love of His soul, and has wanted to give herself as He did! And on the mountain of Carmel, in silence, in solitude, in prayer that never ends, for it continues through everything, the Carmelite already lives as if in Heaven: 'by God alone.' The same One who will one day be her beatitude and will fully satisfy her in glory is already giving Himself to her. He never leaves her, He dwells within her soul; more than that, the two of them are but one. So she hungers for silence that she may always listen, penetrate ever deeper into His Infinite Being. She is identified with Him whom she loves, she finds Him everywhere; she sees Him shining through all things! Is this not Heaven on earth!" (L133)

     "That is the whole life of Carmel, to live in Him. Then all sacrifices, all immolations become divine, for through everything the soul sees Him whom it loves, and everything leads it to Him; it is a continual heart-to-heart! You see you can already be a Carmelite in soul. Love silence and prayer, for that is the essence of Carmelite life." (L136)

     "In Carmel we find many sacrifices of this kind, but they are so sweet when the heart is wholly taken by love. I will tell you what I do when I feel a little tired: I look at the Crucified, and when I see how He delivered Himself up for me, it seems to me that I can do no less for Him than spend myself, wear myself out in order to repay Him a little of what He has given me!" (L156)

     "May this [the Holy Trinity] truly be our dwelling on earth. There let us become silent so we may listen to Him who has so much to tell us, and since you too have this passion to listen to Him, we will meet close to Him so we may hear everything that is being sung in His soul! That is the life of the Carmelite: she is above all a contemplative, another Mary Magdalene whom nothing must distract from the One thing necessary. She loves the Master so much that she wants to become one who is immolated like Him, and her life becomes a continual gift of herself, an exchange of love with Him who possesses her to the point of wanting to transform her into another Himself." (L164)

     "My soul loves to unite with yours in one single prayer for the Church, for the diocese. Since Our Lord dwells in our souls, His prayer belongs to us, and I wish to live in communion with it unceasingly, keeping myself like a little vase at the Source, at the Fountain of life, so that later I can communicate it to souls by letting its floods of infinite charity overflow." (L191)

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