Guite (Marguerite) Catez was born a couple of years after her older sister, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity. Although her older sister entered Carmel after several years of living a contemplative vocation in the world, Guite did not. Guite, somewhat unhappy with convents for taking away her sister but also realizing her own way in life, married. For the five years that Elizabeth was alive in Carmel, they exchanged many letters. Guite took on her sister’s intense spirituality and lived it in her own life.

It was a primarily contemplative life. She was not known for any apostolate other than prayer. In later years she became a tertiary of Saint Francis, but she was never actively involved in a great many apostolates. She had nine children and raised many of them as a widow. Most become nuns or priests, one died young, and the other three married. The testimonies to Guite’s silence, her silence in her room and in the world, and the light that arose in her presence by a kind of silent contact, are many and numerous.

And her life was primarily a contemplative life. Some words confirm this:

She spoke little, always reserved, fairly grave, but, to us children, she smiled so wonderfully. In my younger years, what struck me is her dignity, a dignity that was strong to the point that we did not dare pry [into her interior life].

She would pray. Always, often, continually.

But she was not very “active”, except towards her family and the needs of nine children with a widowed mother.

Where did she learn it all? From her older sister Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, who, although in Carmel, had lived long years of preparation as a contemplative in the world. And to all this, she added her own constant tone that “the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away,” as Saint Job knew.

Guite’s life is the story of a layperson who truly lived a contemplative life in the world. She learned it at the hands of her sister, who had lived in the world and then brought her life more fully in line with God’s will for her own life in Carmel. But Guite nonetheless lived a contemplative life in the mud.