Servant of God Anička Zelíková

A Carmelite tertiary.

Anička Zelíková (19 July 1924-11 September 1941) "was an outstanding member of the Carmelite Third Order. In the series of books on Carmelite saints, Profiles in Holiness, she is considered as another Saint Thérèse, and like the Little Flower she died at a tender age, just seventeen. Annie was born in Moravia, the eastern province of what is now the Czech Republic, the daughter of a farmer. A vivacious girl, she brought happiness to others right up to her death from tuberculosis. Even when she was too weak for anything else, she practiced her ‘apostleship of smiling’, declaring “I must smile to my last breath. Ah, all I can give God now are my heartbeats and my smile. Nothing is left to me except love and trust.” Annie was like Saint Thérèse in recognising that holiness can come through little acts of love. In 1940 she wrote “true beauty is hidden in faithfulness in little things. I always desired to do great and heroic deeds of love, but when I saw that I was unable, I was grieved by it. Now I find great heroism precisely in little things, so that now I haven’t the slightest regret whether I can do something or not.” Like the Little Flower Annie had a great desire to enter Carmel as a nun, but her poor health prevented it. In fact Annie was so ill that she was given special permission to make profession as a member of the Carmelite Third Order Secular. Seven months later she died, smiling to the end. Her final statement was “I trust”, and the last audible word she could speak was “Carmel”. She was buried with the Rule for the Third Order over her heart."

-- Holy men and women of Carmel by Johan Bergström-Allen, Veronica Errington, and Fr. Tony Lester, O.Carm.