St.
Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
(Edith Stein)
Virgin and Martyr, Co-Patron of Europe
Feast Day: 9 August
Who was Edith?
A brief biography
  Edith
Stein was born to a Jewish family at Breslau on October 12,
1891. She was the youngest of 11 children. Her father died
when
she was two years old, and her hard-working and devout mother took over
the care of her large family and timber business. However, Edith did
not keep the strong faith of her mother, and eventually declared
herself an athiest, saying: "deliberately and of
my
own free-will, I turned away from prayer". She was a talented student,
and after finishing school with top results, she chose to study
philosoply in Gottingen where she encountered many
new ways of thinking which challenged her religious experiences and
decisions.
Edith
graduated and continued her philosophical study, achieving a doctorate
degree. During this time, she went into Frankfurt Cathedral one day and
saw a woman with a shopping basket going in to kneel for a brief
prayer. She said later:
"This was
something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant churches
people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming
straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she
was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never
forgot". She found herself searching after
the truth. One day
she went to visit a young Protestant widow, uneasy about what to say to
comfort her. However, she was surprised at the faith of the young woman
and said: "this was the
moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light
on me". One
night during the summer of 1921 she found herself spending several
weeks at the home of a fellow philosopher and his wife. She happened
to pick up the autobiography of St Teresa of
Jesus (of Avila) and read it all through the night, saying to herself
as she finished reading at dawn: "This
is the truth".
 On 1st
January 1922 Edith was baptized and received into the
Catholic Church. It was a decision that her mother never accepted as
long as she lived. Edith continued teaching philosophy and writing,
and held dreams of finding a husband and a
happy marriage. However, as darkness began to break over Germany in the
1930's, she sensed another call; to unite her life with the fate of her
own Jewish people. Nazi law made it impossible for her to continue
teaching, so she entered the Carmelite monastery of
Cologne on 14 October 1933, saying: "Human activities cannot help
us, but only the suffering of Christ. It is my desire to share it". Edith
took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. 
As the the anti-Semitism of the Nazis grew, in 1938 Edith was smuggled
across the border into the Carmelite Convent of Echt in
Holland. However, as the war escalated and Holland was occupied, the
danger for Jews spread to that country. In August 1942, as retaliation
against the protests of Dutch bishops to the treatment of Jews, many
Jewish Christians were arrested, including Edith and her sister Rosa
(who had also converted and was living at the Carmel in Echt). They
were transported to the concentration camp at Auschwitz
where Edith was gassed and cremated on 9th August 1942.
I saw a Saint
Eye-witness account of Edith's Arrest by the Nazis in 1942
My
name is Frits van der Asdonk (63), Montfort Father. I was born at
Meyel, a little village in the south of the Netherlands. My father
originated from Echt where his unmarried sisters and brother were still
living at the time of this story. They had kind of adopted me and so I
spent most of my holidays with them in Echt.  They
owned a store in the
Grote Straat right opposite the Carmel of Echt which played a great
part in the lives of my aunties and uncle. As a little boy I knew much
of the sisters and their conditions of life. Just before the
great war a German Jewess had come to live at the Carmel of Echt; she
came from Cologne and tried, together with her sister, to escape from
Nazi Germany. You guess as much - her name was Sister Benedicta and her
sister's name was Rosa. As my uncle had one of the few automobiles in
the village, he was often asked to take a sister to the regional
hospital in Roermond to consult a specialist. On one such occasion he
took Sister Benedicta with Rosa to the hospital and it was my privilege
to sit in the front seat. No word was spoken and the sisters prayed in
German, a language of which we both were pretty ignorant. It confirmed
the rumour that the Sister was awfully holy and learned.
In
1940 war also invaded the Netherlands and the persecution of the
Jews, hitherto in Nazi Germany, spread to my country. Nobody feared for
the Carmelite nun because, as everyone said, the Germans would respect
an innocent nun. If dates serve my memory well, at the end of July 1942
the Dutch Bishops took a stand, and from the chancel in every parish
church of the country sounded a loud protest and condemnation of the
injustice to the Jews of the country and elsewhere in occupied
countries.
Revenge
could be expected, but nobody thought of Sister Benedicta... in
an enclosed convent... a nun... a Carmelite. Yet this was exactly what
happened, the Sunday after, in the early afternoon. All of a sudden
sounded the war songs of the SS while a group of some forty soldiers
marched through the Grote Straat and halted at the Carmel. The
villagers were forced to clear the streets and withdrew behind the
windows of their houses from which they watched the scene, praying and
weeping. Sister Benedicta appeared after some 15 minutes in choirdress
with the David Star; proudly walking right in the middle of the road
with her sister a little behind her and the German SS forming
a "guard
of honour" on the sidewalks of the street. From the windows came the
farewell shouts of the people ("Sister Benedicta", "Sister Benedicta")
which Sister acknowledged as far as the end of the road where a Panzer
lorry was waiting. What a lonely scene! What a lonely scene! I
witnessed the scene from the windows of the first storey of my aunts'
house in the Grote Straat of Echt. I knew I had seen something
historic, and whenever I revisit the Grote Straat at Echt I see in my
memory's mind a martyr who still lives on not only with God but also in
the hearts of people.
G.v.d.
ASDONK smm
Heiloo, 10-8-1987.
The Sacrifice of the
Cross
Edith
Stein was born as her family were celebrating the Jewish festival of
Yom Kippur. This is historically the Feast of Atonement,
the only day of the year when the High Priest was permitted to enter
the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem, to offer sacrifice for
the sins of the whole people. Being born on this day made Edith very
special to her mother, but it also foreshadowed the life and death that
lay ahead of her.
The
Letter to the Hebrews explains how the death of Jesus on Calvary
brought this feast of Atonement to its fulfilment. Jesus is the High Priest
who
has made offering of His own life, once and for all, for the salvation
of all humanity. Edith gradually came to identify her life
with
that of Jesus on the Cross. She said: "I understood the cross as the
destiny of God's people. I felt that those who understood the Cross of Christ
should take it upon themselves on everybody's behalf." And
this is what she did in her own life. 
After her
entry to Carmel, Edith said: "I
keep thinking of Queen Esther who was taken away from her people
precisely because God wanted her to plead with the king on behalf of
her nation. I am a very poor and powerless little Esther, but the King
who has chosen me is infinitely great and merciful."
Edith
escaped to Holland in an attempt to escape the Nazis, but she must
have sensed that eventually she would be called to offer her life in
imitation of Jesus. As the war escalated she wrote: "I accept the death that God has prepared for
me in complete submission and with joy as being his most holy will for
me. I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death... 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".
Edith's last known words, heard in Echt, were
addressed to her sister Rosa as they were arrested:
"Come,
we are going for our people".
Some quotes of Edith Stein
Truth:
My longing for truth
was a single prayer.
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Prayer:
Every true
prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church
prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every
single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.
|
Jesus:
If anyone
comes to me,
I want to lead them to Him. |
On being Jewish:
You don't know what it means to me to be a
daughter of the chosen people, to belong to Christ, not only
spiritually, but according to the flesh. |
 |
Women:
One could say that in case of need, every normal and healthy woman is
able to hold a position. And there is no profession which cannot be
practiced by a woman. |
Carmelite Vocation:
Those who
join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but
have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God
for everyone. |
Love and suffering:
Love is stronger than hatred. In the end
there will be only the fullness of love... If we accept the whole
Christ in faithful self-giving, by choosing and
walking in the way of the imitation of Christ, then he will lead us
through his Passion and Cross to the glory of the Resurrection.
|
Trust:
Lay all your cares
about the future
trustingly in God's
hands, and let yourself
be guided by the Lord
just like a little child... |
A woman for our times
 At
the beginning of the 21st century, we see a world which is
highly
developed technologically, and yet still suffering from many human
problems, wars, human-rights abuses and inequalities. What has the life
and death of Edith Stein, a woman who lived during one of the most
terrible periods of human history, to offer us? The
writings of Edith Stein focus on three main subjects - the
centrality of the person, the relation of the individual to
society and the role
and dignity of woman.
Centrality of the
person:
During her early years of study, after the outbreak of the First World
War, Edith witnessed the effects of human conflict, and felt called to
respond in love to the injured, volunteering for the Red Cross nursing
service. Her nursing work was selfless and compassionate, and at the
end of her life we see she had not changed. A survivor of the
Westerbork camp where Edith stayed some days before being transported
to Auschwitz related how she went among the other prisoners comforting,
helping and consoling them, and taking care of the little children
whose mothers were unable to do so.
Relation
of the individual to society:
Recognising
that each individual and their relationships to others plays a
part in the creation of a better world challenges our approach to
solving the problems of society. Edith Stein teaches
us that human relations are authentic if they are open to
accepting the other person: a person who is recognized and loved
because of the dignity which comes from being a person and not from
other considerations, such as usefulness, strength, intelligence,
beauty or health.
Many modern conflicts stem from religious differences. As
a Christian who remained ever loyal and respectful of
her
Jewish roots, Edith shows us how to bridge the gap between
different traditions, and so she has an important role to play in the
work of ecumenism.
The
role and dignity of woman:
Edith has
much to say to modern Western woman, who has lost sight of her destiny,
her ‘feminine genius’ as Pope John Paul
II called it. As a
brilliant feminist scholar Edith was able to challenge certain
assumptions of the day, arguing for greater involvement of women in the
liturgical life of the Church, in the professions, and in the
workplace. She was an intellectual leader of the fledgling women's
movement in Germany after World War I. It is a remarkable tribute to
her persona that she was able to harmonize these feminist aspirations
with her abiding belief that at the deepest core of woman's personality
one will find receptivity and motherhood. She
saw receptivity and motherliness as woman's unique power, a power
capable of transforming a home, workplace, professional environment,
country, or society in ways that men cannot. The Edith Stein Foundation
is an example of how the inspiration of Edith's life has influenced
women's healthcare in the modern world.
In
addition to these subjects, the life of Edith Stein can be an example
to all those who are searching for the truth, especially young people.
Many people in today's world describe themselves as "athiest", just
like Edith once did. She can also be a friend to those who feel
estranged from a family member because of religion or morals. As a
highly educated and dedicated professor, she can be a role model for
all those in the academic field. In conclusion, she is a great
inspiration for all Carmelites about the meaning of our vocation, to
unite with the salvific sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross for the sake of
all humankind.
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Poem
written by Edith
on Good Friday 1938
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Prayer of
St Teresa
Benedicta
of the Cross
|
Today
I stood with you beneath the cross
And felt more clearly than I ever did
That you became our Mother only there.
But those whom you have chosen for companions
To stand with you around the eternal throne,
They must stand with you beneath the Cross,
And with the lifeblood of their bitter pains,
Must purchase heavenly glory for those souls
Whom God's own Son entrusted to their care. |
O
my God, fill my soul with holy joy,
courage and strength to serve you.
Enkindle your love in me and then
walk with me along the next stretch
of road before me. I do not see very
far ahead, but when I have arrived
where the horizon now closes down,
a new prospect will open before me
and I shall meet with peace. |
Much has been written about
Edith Stein and it is impossible to discuss her fully on this short
page. However, we hope to have provided you with enough
information to "whet your appetite", and if you are interested in
reading more about her, a quick internet search will reveal
many references.
To get you started, here are a few links which may be
of interest:
Homily
of Pope John Paul for the canonisation of Edith Stein, 11 October 1998
Pope
John Paul II 's Angelus message on the canonisation day of Edith Stein
Vatican
biography of Edith Stein
Volume
IV of the Collected Works of bl. Edith Stein
The Hidden Life,
hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts of Sister Teresa
Benedicta of the Cross Discalced Carmelite. Much of this was written
while she was in refuge from the Nazis in Holland.
Website
with various links and information about Edith Stein
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2009 Carmelite Sisters, Kilmacud