Saint Who?
Saints Who Took Detours in Life
Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
Religious and martyr († 1942) Feast: August 9
Edith Stein was born into a Jewish family in a town in Germany (now in Poland). After her father’s death, her mother made sure that her intelligent, hardworking daughter received a good education. Edith studied under the distinguished philosopher Edmund Husserl and received a doctorate in philosophy.
Edith had lost her faith in God as a teenager. But while staying at a friend’s house, she read the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Ávila, which deeply moved her. Now convinced of the existence of God, she entered the Catholic Church. Because she was a woman, higher academic positions were closed to her, so she worked as a teacher, lecturer, and writer. She initially delayed becoming a Discalced Carmelite nun because she knew that this would cause pain to her Jewish mother.
At the age of forty-two, she finally entered the convent and became Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Over the next decade, as Nazi persecution of Jews increased dramatically in Germany, she was transferred to a Carmelite community in the Netherlands for her safety. However, after the Dutch bishops publicly condemned Nazism, Jews who had become Catholic were arrested. Teresa was taken to Auschwitz, where she was executed. Some have proposed her as a potential Doctor of the Church due to the brilliance of her writings about faith, spirituality, and philosophy.
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
grant the gift of peace to all your people.
