Born in Bari in 1901, the third child of deeply Christian parents, Joseph and Pasqua Fracasso, she was baptized in the Church of St James by her uncle, Fr Charles Fracasso, chaplain at the cemetery, and given the name Theodora, meaning gift of God. On April 8th 1920, the feast of St Albert, author of the Carmelite Rule, she entered the Carmel of St Joseph in Bari and received her habit on November 24, the same year, taking the name Sister Elisha of Saint Clement. She made her first simple vows on December 4, 1921: “Alone at the feet of my Crucified Lord, I looked at him for a long time, and as I looked I saw that He was my whole life”. Besides St. Teresa of Jesus, she took as her guide Therese of the Child Jesus, following the “little way of spiritual childhood where I felt called by the Lord”. She made her solemn profession on February 11, 1925.
She died on Christmas day 1927. On 19th December 2005 Pope Benedict XVI signed the Decree of Beatification. She was proclaimed Blessed in Bari Cathedral on 18th March 2006.
After Universalis and Carmelitani Scalzi Curia Generale Del Carmelo Teresiano http://www.ocd.pcn.net/Elia1_en.htm
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