SIMILAR NAMES- BOTH OF THE ELECT

One of our nuns here is Mother Dilecta. Many years ago we had a young man from the Czech Republic come and spend summers with us while he was at school in the USA.

When I was able to go to Prague a few years later he was my guide, taking me to many of the wonderful monuments of his homeland. He had always been fascinated by Mother Dilecta’s name and wondered if it was related to a nun from Prague who lived in the 17th century named Elekta.  He took me to her convent where I was able to meet her as well as one of the nuns.

One of them sits in a chair in the Church of St. Benedict at Hradčanské Square in Prague and exalts sacred respect not only among the faithful, but also among experts. The body of the VENERABLE ABBESS MARIE ELECTA (1605-1663) is miraculously preserved even 350 years after death!

 

Mother Marie Elekta died in 1663, seven years after establishing a new order of  Carmelites in Prague. This Italian-born nun, Caterina Tramazzoli, was greatly respected as a superior  by the other nuns for her devotional and humble nature. After her death the nuns often went to her grave in St. Elijah's Chapel to pray, and then things started to happen.

One of the sisters always smelled violets, and another would see a heavenly glow. Others, when touching their heads on the gravestone were  relieved of headaches.  In 1666 the grave was opened and according to the original reports, the cavity of the tomb and the coffin itself were flooded with black, smelly water. The body of Mother Marie Electa remained intact, which those present considered a miracle. When they washed it with vinegar and a mixture of herbs (which is why her body is dark today), they found it still flexible. So they tried to sit her down in a chair. At first it did not work, but then she began to bend. Her neck had been broken when they stuffed her into a too small coffin, but she raised her head  in obedience to her nuns.

 

The Carmelite Monastery 

Inside the Church

As early as 1677, 14 years after her death,  her body was studied by physicians and professors at the Medical Faculty of Charles University . And, according to the surviving protocol of that time, the body of Marie Electa was found to be "perfectly intact, having skin completely preserved, brown or chestnut, and all limbs bendable and spouting a liquid of jasmine scent." The integrity of the body unanimously declared "totally miraculous and all natural forces beyond".

A similar conclusion was reached by a panel of leading experts from the same faculty more than 300 years later when they wrote in their 2003 report: "The Commission regards the survival of the intact body  as remarkable and extremely rare.”

 

Her Hands

Venerable Marie Electa miraculously survived during the period of Communism, when the nuns had to leave their monastery in 1950, being sent  to either factories or internment camps. At first  they  did not want to leave without the abbess, but the the Archbishop of Prague told them: "Leave her here if she is holy, she will take care of herself and her monastery." 

And  so she stayed all through the years the Communist regime, while the monastery was converted into a hotel, sitting in her niche waiting the return of the Carmelites in 1992.   When I saw her in 1998 she was behind the glass and grate in the niche to the right of the altar of the church. She has slightly open eyes and she looks as if like she is still smiling, letting us know she has seen things we can only dream of.