Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

“The Cross of Christ! In its constant flowering, the tree of the Cross always bears renewed fruits of salvation. This is why believers turn towards the Cross with confidence, drawing from its mystery of love the courage and the strength to walk in the footsteps of Christ crucified and resurrected. The message of the Cross has thus entered into the heart of many men and women, transforming their existence.

“An eloquent example of this extraordinary interior revival is the spiritual journey of Edith Stein. A young woman in search of the truth became, thanks to the silent work of divine grace, a saint and a martyr: we are speaking about Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who repeats to all today, from the heights of Heaven, the words which left their mark on her existence: May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! (Gal 6: 14)” (Homily of Pope John Paul II, at the canonization of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, October 11, 1998).

Edith Stein was born October 12, 1891 in Breslau (today Wroclaw, in Poland), in a Jewish family. She was three years old when her father died suddenly. Her mother then courageously took on the management of a wholesale lumber business, raising her seven children at the same time. Very observant in synagogue practices, she was the undisputed model of the entire family. “We could read in the example of our mother,” wrote Edith Stein, “the true way to behave. When she said, `That is a sin,’ this term expressed the height of ugliness and nastiness, and we would remain deeply distressed by it.” Yet the children of this exemplary woman would not share her profound attachment to Judaism. Soon Edith’s elder brothers did not participate in the familial religious celebrations out of anything more than filial piety.

Illusion of autonomy

From her adolescence, Edith became an atheist. She said she had “consciously and intentionally lost the habit of praying” at the age of fourteen, not wanting to depend on anyone but herself, anxious to assert her own freedom in the choices of life. This illusion of man’s total independence in regard to God is very widespread today. The Holy Father sees its origin in our first parents: “This is the human condition vividly described by the Book of Genesis when it tells us that God placed the human being in the Garden of Eden, in the middle of which there stood the tree of knowledge of good and evil (2: 17). The symbol is clear: man was in no position to discern and decide for himself what was good and what was evil, but was constrained to appeal to a higher source. The blindness of pride deceived our first parents into thinking themselves sovereign and autonomous, and into thinking that they could ignore the knowledge which comes from God” (Encyclical Fides et ratio, September 14, 1998, no. 22). Such an illusion of autonomy is erroneous, for man, created by God, depends unceasingly on Him. To recognize the created being’s complete dependence in relation to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence. At the end of a long search, Edith Stein recognized that only he who binds himself to the love of Christ becomes truly free.

Thirst for the Truth

It was through studies in philosophy and demanding passion for the truth that Edith Stein made her way little by little towards the full light. “Thirst for the truth,” she said, “remained for me the only prayer.” She wrote, “He who searches for the truth, consciously or unconsciously, searches for God.” In search of the truth about man, Edith embarked on the study of psychology. Disappointed by the reigning skepticism, she placed herself in the school of the philosopher Husserl, who proposed that truth is necessary, unchangeable, eternal; it imposes itself on every intelligence. The contrary opinion, which would have truth depend upon the individual thinker, appeared to him an unhealthy movement, bordering on folly. In our time, the Second Vatican Council recalls that “[man’s] intelligence… can with genuine certitude attain to reality itself as knowable, though, in consequence of sin, that certitude is partly obscured and weakened” (Gaudium et spes, 15). But in spite of the high esteem that she held for learning, Edith recognized after her conversion that “the heart of Christian existence is not in science but in love” (cf. John Paul II, Homily at the Beatification of Edith Stein, May 1, 1987).

In her search for the truth, Edith was helped by providential occurrences. In November 1917, one of her friends, a professor Reinach, a collaborator of Husserl’s, died in the war. Of Israelite origins, he had received a Protestant baptism a year before, with his wife, who would become Catholic a few years later. Madame Reinach asked Edith to classify the philosophical writings of her husband. Witness to the intimacy and the happiness of the Reinach couple, the young woman dreaded finding her friend crushed by sadness. But, sustained by her faith in Christ, her friend had soon accepted sharing the sufferings of the Saviour in His Passion, and a deep peace had overcome her. The Cross, penetrating to the deepest recesses of her being, had wounded and healed her. Edith, who found her transformed by the trial, did not allow any of the feelings which troubled her to appear, but rather received from it an indelible impression. After becoming a Carmelite, she confided to a priest: “This was my first meeting with the Cross, with this divine force that it confers on those who carry it. For the first time, the Church, born of the Passion of Christ and victorious over death, appeared to me visibly. At the same time, my skepticism gave way, Judaism faded in my eyes, while the light of Christ rose in my heart: the light of Christ grasped in the mystery of the Cross. It is the reason why, in taking the habit of Carmel, I wanted to add to my name that of the Cross.”

When the bell tolls

One day, out of pure intellectual interest, she bought a copy of Saint Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. Greatly impressed by this reading, she was near conversion but decided not to take the final step yet. “The message of faith is addressed to many people who do not welcome it,” she exclaimed at the end of her life, as if she did not yet succeed in understanding her long period of hesitation.

The “hour of grace” tolled during a vacation at the home of friends, in the summer of 1921. “One day,” she wrote, “I seized upon a rather imposing work. It was titled, Life of Saint Teresa (of Avila), written by herself. I began to read it. Right away I was captivated, and did not stop reading until the end. When I closed the book, I told myself, `This is the truth!’ ” She immediately bought a Catholic catechism and a missal. She studied them and absorbed them in a short time. Here are her impressions from the first time that she entered a church: “Nothing appeared foreign to me-thanks to the study which I had done, I understood the ceremonies down to the details. A priest of venerable appearance went up to the altar and celebrated the Holy Sacrifice with a deep fervor. After the Mass, I waited for the celebrant to finish his thanksgiving I followed him to the rectory and asked him to baptize me.”

The priest, a little disconcerted, replied that a certain preparation was required for entry into the Church. Edith insisted that he test her on the spot on her knowledge of the faith. A prolonged conversation ensued, at the end of which the priest, full of admiration for the work of grace in this soul, fixed without waiting the date of the Baptism for New Year’s Day 1922. In memory of the reading which brought about her conversion, Edith chose “Teresa” as her baptismal name.

What to say to her admirable mother, an exemplary Israelite? Edith wanted to announce the news to her herself. Falling to her knees, she said simply, “Mother, I am Catholic.” For the first time in her life, the young woman saw her mother cry; both of their hearts were broken, but they remained deeply united. Out of filial piety, Edith stayed at her mother’s for six months, continuing to accompany her to the synagogue, where she understood better and better that the Old Testament reaches its full meaning in the New Testament. Her deep meditation moved Frau Stein, who said, “I have never seen anyone pray like Edith.”

True security

At the time of the establishment of the Third Reich, in 1933, Edith became a university lecturer in Münster. One evening, at the home of friends, she heard talk of the massive persecution of German Jews. “Suddenly,” she wrote, “it seemed clear to me that the hand of the Lord was beating down heavily upon His people (the Jewish people), and that this people’s destiny was becoming my lot.” A few days later, she participated in a ceremony in the chapel of the Carmel of Cologne. A priest was commenting on the Lord’s Passion. “I was speaking interiorly to the Lord,” Edith told, “telling Him that I knew that it was His Cross that now was resting on the Jewish people. The majority of Jews did not understand it, but those who did had to take it upon themselves voluntarily in the name of all. This is what I desired to do. I asked Him only to show me how. When the meditation was over, I received the inmost certainty that I had been heard. I did not know, however, under what form the Cross would be given me.” She would say later to the Mother Prioress of the Carmel: “It is not human activity that can help us, but the sufferings of Christ. I aspire to share them.”

The persecution from now on rendered Edith’s teaching in Germany impossible. “I was almost relieved to be affected by the common fate,” she would write, “but apparently I had to think about what I had to do.” She was offered a position in South America so as to pursue her research there. But she decided to fulfill her old dream: “Had not the time finally come to enter Carmel? For nearly twelve years Carmel had been my goal At this point, it was very difficult to me to continue waiting. I had become a stranger in the world.” Several years before, she had already asked her spiritual director for permission to enter the Carmelite Order. Out of consideration for her mother and because of the importance of her teaching activities, the priest had refused. But in 1933, the difficulties which stood in the way of Edith’s vocation had disappeared: “I could no longer be useful,” she wrote. “And wouldn’t my mother prefer to know that I was in a convent in Germany rather than in a school in South America?” A letter of 1931 shows that she did not take her decision lightly and that she had to struggle in order to find the right way: “It is in the nature of things that before making a decisive step, one spreads out before himself everything which he is abandoning in considering the risk that he is taking. Without any human assurance whatsoever, one must place himself entirely in the hands of God. We are then so much better off and in such greater security.”

Edith’s family was completely unaware of her decision. Little by little, she opened up to her brothers and sisters, begging them not to reveal anything to their mother; Edith was waiting for a favorable moment in which to speak to her. The first Sunday of September, the awaited moment arrived. Here is the moving story recounted by Edith herself: “I was alone in the house, near my mother, who was seated knitting by the window. Suddenly, she asked me the long-awaited question: `What are you going to do in Cologne with the nuns?’ `Live with them!’ Mother didn’t stop knitting. Her ball of wool got tangled up. With her trembling hands, she attempted to straighten it out. I helped her with it while our conversation continued. From this moment, peace left the family. A heavy oppression hovered over the house. From time to time, my mother tried again some question or other. A silence would follow. My brothers and sisters thought as my mother did, but did not want to add to her pain The decision to enter Carmel was so serious, so fraught with consequences, that no one could say with certainty that it was the right way I had to take this step in the total darkness of faith.”

Why did he want to make himself God?

Edith accompanied her mother to the synagogue for the last time on October 12. On their way home, her mother asked her, “Wasn’t the sermon beautiful?”-“It certainly was, Mother.”-“Can’t one then also be pious among the Jews?”-“Of course, if he has not learned to know something else.”-“Why then have you learned something else? I don’t want to have anything against Jesus. He may have been a very good being. But why did he want to make himself God?” Edith understood, from the tone of the conversation, that the moment to respond to this question had not yet come-she preferred to remain silent. “That day,” she added, “there was a crowd of people at the house. One after the other, our guests took leave. Finally, I was alone in the room with Mother. Resting her hands on her face, she began to cry. I seated myself beside her and pressed this venerable gray-haired head gently to my chest. We remained in this position a long time, until she wanted to go to bed. But that night, we did not close our eyes for a moment.”

On October 15, 1933, the feast of St. Teresa, Edith Stein entered the Carmel of Cologne, where she took the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. For a long time, her letters to her mother remained unanswered Then regular exchanges resumed. The 14th of September 1936, Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, at the moment when Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was renewing her vows, she had a very clear feeling: “My mother is close to me.” The same day, a telegram informed her of her mother’s death, which occurred at the very time of the ceremony. A short time afterwards, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross had the joy of welcoming her sister Rosa, who came to Cologne and finally received Baptism, which she had long postponed for fear of further wounding the elderly mother. Rosa joined Edith in Carmel in 1938.

The wings of angels

Not long thereafter, the two sisters were sent to the Carmel of Echt in Holland to avoid being arrested as Jews and sent to a concentration camp. They were not completely out of danger. Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross wrote on this subject: “It is good to remember these days that poverty equally consists in being deprived of our enclosure. We committed ourselves to remaining cloistered, but God was not committed to allowing us to remain always behind our walls. There is no need for it, for He possesses other walls to protect us If we are faithful to our rules of enclosure, even if we were tossed out onto the street, God would send His angels to protect us, and their wings would surround us more securely that the thickest and highest walls.”

On July 11, 1942, the religious directors of Christian denominations in Holland sent to the Reich’s police chief a telegram in which they protested the deportation of Jewish families. July 26th, a lively protest of the same manner was read in every church in the country. The National Socialist occupiers reacted violently. They arrested all the Catholic Jews in the Low Countries, male and female religious included. The representative of Hitler did not allow any doubt to hover that it was a measure of repression: “The Catholic bishops being entangled in an affair that does not regard them, all the Catholic Jews will be expelled starting this week. All protest will be useless.” The 2nd of August, 1942, Edith and Rosa Stein were arrested and interned at the Westerbork camp in Holland. This stop at Westerbork seems to have lasted from the 5th to the 6th of August. There were one thousand two hundred Catholic Jews, of which about fifteen were men and women religious. Around a thousand were deported with Sister Teresa Benedicta the night of the 6th-7th of August.

On this occasion, Pope Pius XII first prepared a letter of energetic protest against the persecution of the Jews. Then, reflecting on the even harsher repressions which his message might provoke, he gave up the idea, explaining to a close friend: “It is better to be silent in public and to do in silence, as before, everything that it is possible to do for these poor people” (cf. Pius XII, by Pascalina Lehnert, 1985). The Pope indeed made use of every possible means to save the Jews (cf. Pius XII and the Second World War, by Pierre Blet S.J., 1997). After the war, prominent Israelites would testify to the fact that his action had saved the lives of tens of thousands of people.

“I am happy with everything”

Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross succeeded in sending two messages to the Carmel of Echt. The first had no date or indication of where it had been sent from. It read, “I am happy with everything The knowledge of the Cross cannot be acquired unless you truly feel the Cross resting on your shoulders. From the first moment I have been convinced of this, and, to myself, I have said, `Ave Crux, Spes unica: We hail you, O Cross, our only hope!'”

The second message, dated the 6th of August, sent from Westerbork, Barrack 36, mentions, “Tomorrow morning the first transport leaves for Silesia or Czechoslovakia Until now, I have been able to pray magnificently.”

A witness who had the good fortune to escape deportation, wrote, “Among the prisoners who arrived at the Westerbork camp August 5, Sister Benedicta distinguished herself clearly from the group by her peaceful and calm attitude. The cries, the moans, the state of anguished overexcitement of the new arrivals were indescribable! Sister Benedicta went among the women like an angel of consolation, calming some, caring for others. Many mothers seemed to have fallen into a state of prostration, near insanity; they remained there, to moan, dazed, neglecting their children. Sister Benedicta took care of the little children-she washed them, combed their hair, obtained food and essential care for them. As long as she was in the camp, she lavished around her such charitable assistance that we remain completely overwhelmed by it.” Pope John Paul II explained the origin of this great charity when he said, “The love of Christ was the fire that set aflame the life of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross The Word Incarnate was everything for her” (Homily at the Canonization, October 11, 1998). The saint herself wrote, “Our love for our neighbor is the measure of our love for God. For Christians-and not only for them-no one is a `stranger.’ The love of Christ knows no borders.”

The Calvary of Edith Stein and her sister Rosa, who accompanied her up to the end, ended at the camp in Auschwitz. Both found death there August 9, 1942, in a heartbreaking drama known to God alone. The exact date would be related by the official bulletin of Holland of February 16th, 1950, which published the lists of victims who died in deportation. We know only that before the convoy left for Auschwitz, the deportees had had to undergo frequent interrogations and numerous humiliations. August 9th, 1942, the saint’s eyes closed to the light of day, and her soul opened wide to the splendors of eternal life.

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, now enjoying fully the Divine Glory, knew how to allow herself to be led by the hand by the heavenly Father. In her utter confidence in God, she wrote this beautiful prayer: “Lord, let me walk without seeing on the paths that are Yours. I do not want to know where You are leading me. Am I not Your child? You are the Father of Wisdom and also my Father. Even if You lead me through the night, it is towards You. Lord, let happen what You will-I am ready, even if You do not satisfy my desire in this life. You are the Lord of Time. Do everything according to the plans of Your Wisdom. When You call gently to sacrifice, help me, yes, to perform it. Allow me to go completely beyond my little `me,’ so that, dead to myself, I might live only for You!”

This is also the grace that we ask of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, for you and for all those who are dear to you.