Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora: Mother & Mystic

by Mary Elizabeth Herbert

Elizabeth Canori Mora was born in 1774, in Rome. Raised in a devout but poor household, she was given an excellent education by religious sisters. Her life changed dramatically when she was married to Christopher Mora, a local lawyer and son of a famous doctor. The marriage began happy but turned sour as her husband changed from becoming possessive of her to the point of preventing her communication with her relatives, to abandoning her and taking up a mistress. Yet Elizabeth turned to God and prayed for his conversion, taking solace in her two surviving daughters and raising them in the faith. The story of Elizabeth Canori Mora is one both familiar, and unique. The story of a wronged wife, celebrated on her wedding day but whom we ought rather to mourn for if we could foresee the great sufferings she will undergo in wedlock; and unique in that her heroic virtue, fidelity and love excels that of so many that end up in this all too familiar state. For her fidelity and love of Christ, Elizabeth received many revelations from God, and merited that her husband would turn from his wicked ways and become again devout-to the point that after her death he became a Franciscan cleric. In this work, you will discover what you rarely see in so many lives of monks, abbots and missionaries, a married saint, a wife who should be the patron of wronged and long-suffering wives. The reprinted work of Mary Elizabeth Herbert has been revised for modern English and has pictures added for the benefit of the reader, with new typesetting in an easy to read font.

210 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 7, 2018

Reviews

[Dawn Axelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gave me extremely mixed emotions. I started eleven months ago, and enjoyed the first half. Then the imagery got disturbing. I set it down for several months, and forgot about it—including why it had bothered me.

I’m behind on my reading goal for the year. Being able to click off another book with fewer than a hundred pages was my less-than-stellar reason for picking this story back up again.

The part about Christ nailing Elizabeth to a cross Himself made me set the thing down for a couple more days. But then I decided to just plough through.

A lot was wonderful. About 5% was really troubling. Is that on me? It’s entirely possible. Elizabeth is now a Blessed, after all. But there’s simply too many ways to be edified in this world for me to consider reading this again: something that comes with such a side of baggage along with the sublime.