St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891-1942) Part – 2: Her Martyrdom
Welcome to INSPIRING LIVES, a series on the lives of Saints in the catholic church
from around the world. In this series we bring you those saints who are canonized
by Pope John Paul II. Saints are holy people who lived ordinary lives in extraordinary
ways. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her
unique gifts. These saints are examples of great holiness and virtue, and they invite
us to follow their paths to holiness. Their unique stories inspire us to be rooted
in our faith. As Pope Francis þ wrote on 21 November 2013, ‘to be saints is not a
privilege of the few, but a vocation for everyone’. God calls each one of us to be
a saint. Last week we listened to the life and works of Edith Stein who became
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 11th
October 1998 in the Vatican Basilica. Her feast is celebrated on August 9. Today we
shall listen to her final surrender to God while she was martyred in the gas chamber
of the Auschwitz concentration camp on 9 August 1942. Listen: On
the occasion of the beatification of Edith Stein on 1 May 1987, in Cologne, Germany,
Blessed John Paul II said: "We bow down before the testimony of the life and death
of Edith Stein, an outstanding daughter of Israel and at the same time a daughter
of the Carmelite Order, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a personality who united
within her rich life a dramatic synthesis of our century. All this came together in
a single heart that remained restless and unfulfilled until it finally found rest
in God." Edith Stein was born in a Jewish family in Breslau, Germany on 12 October
1891, the youngest of 11 children. Her father died when she was just two years old.
Her mother, a very devout, and hard-working woman, then had to look after the family
and their large business. However, she did not succeed in keeping up a living faith
in her children. As a teenager, Edith lost her faith in God. But years later, she
wrote: "Things were in God's plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the
living faith and conviction that - from God's point of view - there is no chance and
that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God's divine
providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God's all-seeing eyes." On 1
January 1922, at the age of 21, Edith Stein was baptized. It was the Feast of the
Circumcision of Jesus, when Jesus entered into the covenant of Abraham. At the Feast
of the Purification of Mary - another day with an Old Testament reference - she was
confirmed by the Bishop of Speyer in his private chapel. Immediately after her conversion
she wanted to join a Carmelite convent. However, her spiritual mentors, stopped her
from doing so. Eventually, however, Edith joined the Carmelite Convent of Cologne
on 14 October, and her investiture took place on 15 April 1934. xxx In
1938 Edith wrote: "I understood the cross as the destiny of God's people, which was
beginning to be apparent at that time. I felt that those who understood the Cross
of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody's behalf. Of course, I know
better now what it means to be wedded to the Lord in the sign of the cross. However,
one can never comprehend it, because it is a mystery." On 21 April 1935 she took
her temporary vows. On 14 September 1936, the renewal of her vows coincided with her
mother's death in Breslau. "My mother held on to her faith to the last moment. But
as her faith and her firm trust in her God ... were the last thing that was still
alive in the throes of her death, I am confident that she will have met a very merciful
judge and that she is now my most faithful helper, so that I can reach the goal as
well." When she made her final profession on 21 April 1938, she had the words of
St. John of the Cross printed on her devotional picture: "Henceforth my only vocation
is to love." Her final work was to be devoted to this author. Her entry into the Carmelite
Order was not escapism. "Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their
near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede
to God for everyone." In particular, she interceded to God for her people: "I keep
thinking of Queen Esther who was taken away from her people precisely because God
wanted her to plead with the king on behalf of her nation. I am a very poor and powerless
little Esther, but the King who has chosen me is infinitely great and merciful. This
is great comfort," she wrote on 31 October 1938. xxx On 9 November 1938
the anti-Semitism of the Nazis became apparent to the whole world. Synagogues were
burnt, and the Jewish people were subjected to terror. The prioress of the Carmelite
Convent in Cologne did her utmost to take Sister Teresa Benedicta abroad. On New Year's
eve 1938 she was smuggled across the border into the Netherlands, to the Carmelite
Convent in Echt in the Province of Limburg. This is where she wrote her will on
9 June 1939: "Even now I accept the death that God has prepared for me in complete
submission and with joy as being his most holy will for me. I ask the Lord to accept
my life and my death so that the Lord will be accepted by His people and that His
Kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world." While
in the Cologne convent, Edith Stein had been given permission to start her academic
studies again. Among other things, she wrote about "The Life of a Jewish Family":
"I simply want to report what I experienced as part of Jewish humanity," she said,
pointing out that "we who grew up in Judaism have a duty to bear witness to the young
generation who are brought up in racial hatred from early childhood." In Echt,
Edith Stein hurriedly completed her study of ‘The Church's Teacher of Mysticism and
the Father of the Carmelites, John of the Cross, on the Occasion of the 400th
Anniversary of his birth. In 1941 she wrote to a friend, who was also a member of
her order: "One can only gain the knowledge of the cross if one has thoroughly experienced
the cross. I have been convinced of this from the first moment onwards and have said
with all my heart: 'I welcome you, Cross, our only hope." Her study on St. John of
the Cross is entitled: "The Science of the Cross”. Edith Stein was arrested by
the Gestapo on 2 August 1942, while she was in the chapel with the other sisters.
She was to report within five minutes, together with her sister Rosa, who had also
converted and was serving at the Echt Convent. Her last words to be heard in Echt
were addressed to Rosa: "Come, we are going for our people." Together with many
other Jewish Christians, the two sisters were taken to a transit camp in Amersfoort
and then to Westerbork. This was an act of retaliation against the letter of protest
written by the Dutch Roman Catholic Bishops against the pogroms and deportations of
Jews. Edith commented, "I never knew that people could be like this, neither did
I know that my brothers and sisters would have to suffer like this. I pray for them
every hour. Will God hear my prayers? He will certainly hear them in their distress."
Prof. Jan Nota, who later wrote about later: "She is a witness to God's presence in
a world where God is absent." On 7 August, early in the morning, 987 Jews were
deported to Auschwitz. It was probably on 9 August that Sister Teresa Benedicta, her
sister and many of her people were gassed. As Pope John Paul said, she was "a daughter
of Israel", 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." xxx You
have been listening to INSPIRING LIVES, a weekly series based on the lives of Catholic
Saints from around the world, brought to you by Vatican Radio’s English Service for
South Asia. By P.J. Joseph SJ FRIDAY, 14 MARCH 2014