Subj : August 9th - St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross To : All From : rich Date : Wed Aug 08 2018 10:09:43 From: rich August 9th - St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Martyr, Carmelite Nun, Philosopher, Writer, Teacher and Lecturer Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 at Breslaw, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland)=E2=80=93 a date that coincided with her family's c= elebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish =E2=80=9Cday of atonement.=E2=80=9D Edith=E2=80= =99s father died when she was just two years old and she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith as an adolescent. As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913. Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired. After earning her degree with the highest honours from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I. She returned to academic work in 1916, earning her doctorate 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, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. =E2=80=9CWhen I had finished the book,=E2=80=9D she later recalled, = =E2=80=9CI said to myself: This is the truth.=E2=80=9D She was baptised into the Catholic Chur= ch on the first day of January, 1922. Edith intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step. Instead, she taught at a Dominican school and gave numerous public lectures on women's issues. She spent 1931 writing a study o= f St. Thomas Aquinas and took a university teaching position in 1932. In 1933, the rise of Nazism, combined with Edith's Jewish ethnicity= , put an end to her teaching career. After a painful parting with her mother, who did not understand her Christian conversion, she entered a Carmelite convent in 1934, taking the name =E2=80=9CTeresa Benedicta of the Cross=E2=80=9D as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering. =E2=80=9CI felt,=E2=80=9D she wrote, =E2=80=9Cthat those who understood the= Cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody's behalf.=E2=80=9D She saw= it as her vocation =E2=80=9Cto intercede with God for everyone=E2=80=9D but she praye= d especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear. =E2=80=9CI ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,=E2=80=9D she wrote = in 1939, =E2=80=9Cso that the Lord will be accepted by His people and that His kingd= om may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.=E2=80=9D After completing her final work, a study of St. John of the Cross entitled =E2=80=9CThe Science of the Cross,=E2=80=9D Teresa Benedicta was a= rrested 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. Edith commented, =E2=80=9CI never knew that people could be like this, neither did I know that my brothers and sisters would have to suffer like this. =E2=80=A6 I pray for them every hour. Will God hear my prayers? He will certainly hear them in their distress.=E2=80=9D Prof Jan Nota, who was greatly attached to her, wrote later: =E2=80=9CShe is a witness to God's presence in a world where= God is absent.=E2=80=9D On 7 August, early in the morning, 987 Jews were deported = to Auschwitz. It was too, on 9 August, that Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, her sister and many other of her people were gassed in the ovens of Oswiecim (a.k.a. Auschwitz), Malopolskie, Poland). When Edith Stein was beatified in Cologne on 1 May 1987, the Church honoured =E2=80=9Ca daughter of Israel=E2=80=9D, as St Pope John Paul II pu= t it, who, as a Catholic during Nazi persecution, remained faithful to the crucified Lord Jesus Christ and, as a Jew, to her people in loving faithfulness.=E2=80=9D St John Paul II canonised her in 1998 and proclaime= d her a co-patroness of Europe the next year. Patronages =E2=80=93 Europe; loss of parents; converted Jews; Martyrs; Wor= ld Youth Day. Attributes =E2=80=93 Yellow Star of David on a Discalced Carmeli= te nun's habit, flames, a book. By AnaStpaul Saint Quote: =E2=80=9DThe limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.=E2=80=9D --Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Bible Quote: For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. Isaiah 62:5 <><><><> Lord, God of our fathers, you brought Saint Teresa Benedicta to the fullness of the science of the cross at the hour of her martyrdom. Fill us with that same knowledge; and, through her intercession, allow us always to seek after you, the supreme truth, and to remain faithful until death to the covenant of love ratified in the blood of your Son for the salvation of all men and women. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .