August 9th St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

 

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein). She was born on Yom Kipper, the Jewish Day of Atonement on October 12, 1891. The youngest of 11 children, she was born of Jewish parents, who lived in Germany. When she was not yet 2 yrs. old, her father died suddenly, causing her mother to raise the children by herself.

From her earliest years, she showed a great aptitude for learning, and by the time of the outbreak of World War I, she had studied philosophy at two different universities.

After the war, she resumed her higher studies at the University of Freiburg and was awarded her doctorate in philosophy Suma Cum Laude. She later became the assistant and collaborator of Professor Husserl, the famous founder of phenomenology, who greatly appreciated her brilliant mind.

Forsaking her Jewish faith, she became a self-proclaimed atheist. However, by way of philosophy, she came to know, love and embrace Christianity. In the midst of all her studies, Edith Stein was searching not only for the truth, but for Truth itself.

During the summer of 1921, at the age of twenty-nine, Stein was vacationing with friends, but ended up alone one evening. She picked up, seemingly by chance, the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. She read it in one sitting, decided that the Catholic faith was true, and went out the next day to buy a missal and a copy of the Catholic catechism. She was baptized on New Year’s Day, the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, in 1922.

After her conversion, Edith spent her days teaching, lecturing, writing and translating, and she soon became known as a celebrated philosopher and author, but her own great longing was for the solitude and contemplation of Carmel, in which she could offer herself to God for her people.

While on a trip during Holy Week of 1933, Edith stopped in Cologne at the Carmelite convent during the service for Holy Thursday. She attended it with a friend, and by her own account, the homily moved her very deeply. She wrote: “I told our Lord that I knew it was His cross that was now being placed upon the Jewish people; that most of them did not understand this, but that those who did would have to take it up willingly in the name of all. I would do that. At the end of the service, I was certain that I had been heard. But what this carrying of the cross was to consist in, that I did not yet know.”

Edith received the Habit of Carmel and the religious name of "Teresa Benedicta of the Cross," and on Easter Sunday, 21 April 1935, she made her Profession of Vows.

When the Jewish persecution increased in violence and fanaticism, Sister Teresa Benedicta soon realized the danger at the Cologne Carmel, and so she asked and received permission to transfer to a foreign monastery. On the night of December 31^st of 1938, she secretly crossed the border into Holland where she was warmly received in the Carmel of Echt. There she wrote her last work, The Science of the Cross.

Her own Cross was just ahead of her, for the Nazis had invaded neutral Holland. Sr. Teresa Benedicta and her blood sister, Rosa Stein, who also joined the Carmelites, were arrested on August 2, 1942. When Rosa, seemed disoriented as they were led away from the convent, Edith gently encouraged her, “Come, Rosa. We go for our people.” They were transported by cattle train to the death camp of Auschwitz. The conditions in the box cars were so inhuman-- that many died or went insane on the four day trip.

Although she did not seek death, Stein had often expressed her willingness to offer herself along with the sacrifice of Christ for the sake of her people, the Jews, and also for the sake of their persecutors. She died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz on August 9^th of 1942 at the age of 50.

God accepted her sacrifice and will give its fruit to the people for whom she prayed, suffered, and died. In her own words: "One can only learn the science of the Cross by feeling the Cross in one’s own person." We can say that in the fullest sense of the word, Sister Teresa was "Benedicta a Cruce" -- blessed by the Cross. Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross on 1 May 1987, and canonized her on October 11^th, 1998.

Today, let us turn to St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and ask her to help us to embrace our crosses, so that when its time to meet Jesus face to face at our judgment, our heart will be filled with joy because we were blessed by the Cross and because of it, we will share in glory of heaven.