St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) was born the youngest of 11 children to Siegfried and Augusta Stein, a deeply devout Jewish couple in Breslau, Germany, on 12 October 1891. Edith's father passed away when she was only two years old. Despite this loss, she grew up as a determined young woman and excelled as a student. In her early teens, Edith Stein suddenly stopped believing in God and declared herself an atheist in 1904. In time, however, being not foolish but highly intelligent, this youngster became a convert not only to believe in God but to believe in Him as taught, propagated, and practiced by the Catholic Church.

She had a thirst for knowledge and was able to reconcile opposing ideas and philosophies on the nature of life with her exceptional intellect. In the autumn of 1921, she read the story of the life of the great mystic St Teresa of Avila. Providentially, the saint had opened Edith's heart to the grace of a spiritual journey in a serious study of the Catholic Faith that culminated in her baptism on 1 January 1922. It was the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus when Jesus entered into the covenant of Abraham. Not long before, her sister, Rosa, became a Catholic and devout one like her.

Edith's conviction of the truth in her newfound Faith was very deep. It scaled new heights when she entered the Carmelite Cloister in Cologne on 14 October 1933. On 15 April 1934, she took the name Teresa Benedicta à Cruce, which meant Teresa blessed by the cross.

By 1937, Nazi hatred for the Jews had reached alarming proportions, expressing itself as it did in the burning of the synagogues in Cologne. Through the media, the Nazis brainwashed the general populace of Germany into increasingly detesting the Jews as a sub-human race. Fearing for the safety of the two Stein sisters, their superiors had them dispatched to the Carmelite convent at Echt, Holland. 

In 1940, however, the Netherlands was invaded by the Nazis. This action was openly denounced by the Dutch bishops, as a result of which the persecution was broadened to cover Jewish converts to Christianity as well. Teresa, Rosa, and several such converts were thus arrested and dispatched to the concentration camps at Auschwitz. It was on 9 August 1942 that the Stein sisters were marched to their deaths in the gas chamber. Pope John Paul II beatified Teresa Benedicta of the Cross on 1 May 1987 when he visited Cologne, West Germany, and, later, a Saint on 11 October 1998.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, pray for us to be blessed with the grace to bear sufferings with Christian Faith and optimism out of love of Our Lord.

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,

Most High Servant,

Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love

(Blessed and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)