Today, the Church remembers St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein. She converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher, and later entered the Carmelite Religious Order. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942. Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 – a date that coincided with her family’s celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.”
In 1916, Edith earned her doctoral degree after writing a highly-regarded thesis on the phenomenon of empathy. She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment, but had not yet made such a commitment herself. In 1921, while visiting friends, she spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January, 1922.
She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear. “I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so that the Lord will be accepted by His people and that His kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.”
After completing her final academic work, a study of St. John of the Cross entitled “The Science of the Cross,” Teresa Benedicta was arrested along with her sister Rosa (who had also become a Catholic), and the members of her Religious community, on August 7, 1942. The arrests came in retaliation against a protest letter by the Dutch Bishops, decrying the Nazi treatment of Jews.
Let us pray. “Ever-living God, you gave St. Theresa Benedicta the courage to witness to the Gospel of Christ, even to the point of giving her life for it. By her prayers, help us to endure all present suffering for love of you. Help us also seek you with all our heart, mind, and soul – for you alone are the source of our life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
