Optional Memorial of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, virgin and martyr

 Lectionary: 411

For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,
and then he will repay each according to his conduct.
Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here
who will not taste death
until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

On retreat in Marytown last year, I picked up a biography of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She is known to the philosophical world as Edith Stein, and often called by that name in several Youtube videos. Raised in a large family by a devout Jewish widow, she was a serious child, excellent student, skilled conversationalist, and devoted friend to her classmates. She set out to be a teacher, studied psychology, and pursued degrees and positions as a philosopher in the German academy; but her career was cut short in the 1930's by the rising tide of antisemitism and the ancient reluctance to recognize capable women. 

The brilliant Jewess picked up a fascinating book while visiting a friend -- the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Siena -- and finished reading it in one sitting that night. She recognized a kindred spirit in the 15th century Spanish Carmelite. 

Edith Stein turned to Catholicism, entered the Church, and started translating the writings of Thomas Aquinas with her own phenomenological slant. Advised by her spiritual director to wait a while before following her impulse, she taught in a Catholic school and lived among the sisters who taught there, before she finally followed the Sienan into a Carmelite cloister. Recognized immediately for her intelligence and writing ability, she sought a publisher for her translation, taught the novices Carmelite spirituality, and wrote an important study of Saint John of the Cross.

However, Germany was collapsing into vicious idolatry of an evil man and, as Jews were fleeing or disappearing, her superiors sent her to a cloister in Belgium. But Germany's instability followed as their armies set out to avenge the First World War. When the Belgian Catholic bishops protested the Nazi persecution of Jews, the regime responded by arresting all Jewish converts to Catholicism and sending them to Auschwitz. Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died there within days of her arrest, on August 9, 1942. 

Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1998, after a child miraculously recovered from an overdose of acetaminophen. 

To study the saints is to discover the wonder of God's gracious mercy. It also opens our minds to the effect we have on others, for we are saints among the saints in the halls of heaven. That we are still earthbound, prey to temptation, and often guilty of sin does not cancel the favor of God nor does it annul the redemptive grace that works with and through us. Even our bad moods within the community are graceful opportunities for others as they speak kindly and patiently to us. 

This Carmelite martyr must remind us that anyone who hates Jews hates God. Encountering antisemitism in any form, we must say that clearly and directly.

I have found it easy to imagine Edith Stein as a friend and fellow conversationalist, though I speak not a word of German. Finishing Saint Teresa's autobiography she said, "That is the truth!" Truth is the language of Pentecost and of the universal Church. Everyone who turns to God learns that language.