St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein OCD): "Hail Cross, Our Only Hope" (August 9, 1942)

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ddressing himself to the young people gathered for the 11 October 1998 canonization in Rome, St Pope John Paul II said:

“Your life is not an endless series of open doors! Listen to your heart! Do not stay on the surface but go to the heart of things! And when the time is right, have the courage to decide! The Lord is waiting for you to put your freedom in his good hands.”

1891, October 12—She was born into an observant Jewish family but had become an atheist by her teenage years.

1914–Moved by the tragedies of World War I, she took lessons to become a Red Cross nursing assistant and worked in an infectious diseases hospital despite the prohibition of her mother.

"I had heavy opposition to face from my mother. I did not even tell her that it was a lazaretto [i.e., for those with contagious diseases.] She was well aware that no suggestion of hers that my life would be endangered could ever induce me to change my plans. So as an ultimate deterrent, she told me all the soldiers arrived from the front with clothes overrun by lice and that I could not possibly escape infestation. Naturally that was a scourge I dreaded—but if the people in the trenches all had to suffer from it why should I be better off than they?... When this tactic failed, my mother declared with all the energy she could muster: 'You will not go with my permission.' My reply was every bit as determined. 'Then I must go without your permission.' My sisters were downright shocked at my harsh retort... Now, however, granite was striking granite. My mother said no more and was very silent and depressed for several days, a mood which always affected the entire household."—Life in a Jewish Family

"My life isn’t my own anymore. All my energies belong to this great undertaking. When the war is over, if I’m still alive, then there will be plenty of time to think about my own affairs again... Naturally I offered my services without restriction. If there is anything I wanted, it was to be sent out as soon and as far as possible... preferably to a field hospital on the front."—Letter

1916—When the hospital was dissolved, she followed Edmund Husserl as his assistant to the German city of Freiburg.

1917—She passed her doctorate summa cum laude (with the utmost distinction), after writing a thesis on "The Problem of Empathy." When her good friend Adolf Reinach, Husserl's Göttingen assistant, fell in Flanders in November 1917, Edith went to visit the bereaved widow. At first, she felt uneasy about meeting the young widow but was greatly surprised to meet such a woman of faith. The Reinachs had converted to Protestantism. She wrote:

"This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it... it was the moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me—Christ in the mystery of the Cross."

1918, Autumn—Edith Stein gave up her job as Husserl's teaching assistant.

1919—She underwent a profound faith experience when she went inside the Frankfurt Cathedral for a few minutes. As she stood there moved in reverential silence, she saw a woman, with her shopping basket, who knelt down in one of the pews to say a prayer. "That was something completely new to me," Stein recounted. "In a synagogue, as in Protestant churches I had visited, people only went in at the time of the service. But here was someone coming into the empty church in the middle of the day’s work as if to talk with a friend. I have never been able to forget that.”–Life in a Jewish Family

1921, Summer—As a guest in her friend’s house, she was urged to read anything she wanted from the bookcase, while her friends were at a business meeting.

“I reached in at random and brought out a hefty volume. It carried the title: Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila written by herself. I began to read, was captivated immediately, and did not stop until I had read to the end. As I closed the book, I told myself: “This is Truth.” From that moment on Carmel was my goal..."–Life in a Jewish Family

1922, January 1—Baptized a Catholic. Her Spiritual Director asked her to wait and become "at home" in the Catholic Faith before entering the cloistered life in the monastery of Discalced Carmelites.

1925—While living and working at St Magdalena’s Dominican College in Speyer, Edith met the Jesuit theologian and philosopher of religion, Fr Erich Przywara SJ. It was a life-changing encounter that led to a lifelong friendship and spiritual conversation between the two scholars. Edith translated some of Newman’s works into German upon Przywara's request.

1930—She saw again Edmund Husserl and she shared with him about her conversion and newfound faith, as she would have liked her mentor to become a Christian, too. Then she wrote down the amazing words:

"Every time I feel my powerlessness and inability to influence people directly, I become more keenly aware of the necessity of my own holocaust."

1933 Letter To Pope Pius XI

[...] Everything that happened and continues to happen on a daily basis originates with a government that calls itself "Christian." For weeks not only Jews but also thousands of faithful Catholics in Germany, and, I believe, all over the world, have been waiting and hoping for the Church of Christ to raise its voice to put a stop to this abuse of Christ's name. Is not this idolization of race and governmental power, which is being pounded into the public consciousness by the radio open heresy? Isn't the effort to destroy Jewish blood an abuse of the holiest humanity of our Savior, of the most blessed Virgin and the apostles? Is not all this diametrically opposed to the conduct of our Lord and Savior, who, even on the cross, still prayed for his persecutors? And isn't this a black mark on the record of this Holy Year which was intended to be a year of peace and reconciliation? [...]

1933, January—Adolf Hitler rose to power first as chancellor of Germany and followed by a series of electoral victories by the Nazi Party. He ruled absolutely until his death by suicide in April 1945.

1933, July—Just six months after Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the Catholic Church signed the Concordat with Hitler. As a result of this agreement, the Catholic Church agreed not to oppose the political and social aims of the Nazi Party. Pope Pius XI hoped that the Concordat would allow the Catholic Church in Germany to operate free from any interference. He was soon to be disappointed.

1934—All those with Jewish heritage were denied the opportunity to teach. Edith Stein then requested entrance into the Discalced Carmelite monastery at Cologne and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, after St Teresa of Avila who had inspired her conversion. There she completed her metaphysical work Endliches und Ewiges Sein (“Finite and Eternal Being”), an attempt to synthesize the diverse philosophies of Aquinas and Husserl. Other philosophical and spiritual works followed.

1937, March 14—Anti-Nazi ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI, MIT BRENNENDER SORGE ("With burning anxiety") was circulated drawing the ire of Adolf Hitler. It is easy for us to ask why such a document took so long to be issued? But before we move towards a certain path of judging history, we keep in mind it was not so easy to live in that time of great oppression. The lives of tens of thousands were put on the line. Some wanted the Pope to excommunicate Hitler but one has to keep in mind that there is always collateral damage with each top-level decision. As expected, after “MIT BRENNENDER SORGE,” Hitler's retaliation was swift and brutal. Priests in Germany were warned not to criticize Hitler or the Nazi regime. However, individual priests did make a stand against the government, and between 1939 and 1943, 693 Catholic priests were arrested and tried for "oppositional activity."

1938—With the Nazi threat growing, Stein was transferred to the Carmelite convent at Echt in the Netherlands, where it was thought she would be safe from persecution. There she wrote her important treatise Studie über Joannes a Cruce: Kreuzeswissenschaft ("The Science of the Cross"), a phenomenological study of St John of the Cross.

1939, September 1—World War II had begun after the invasion of predominantly-Catholic Poland. German forces bombarded Poland on land and from the air.

1940, May—During the first months of the occupation, Polish priests and monks were arrested. Many of them were detained at Auschwitz concentration camp at the German-Polish border that Nazi Germany annexed in 1939 after invading and conquering Poland. Between 1940 and 1945 at least 464 priests, seminarians, and monks, and 35 nuns were deported to Auschwitz from Poland and other countries of occupied Europe: France, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany.

1942, July 26—The condemnation of Nazi anti-Semitism by the Dutch bishops of occupied Netherlands provoked Adolf Hitler to order the arrest of all non-Aryan Roman Catholics within the country.

1942, August 2—Edith Stein and companions boarded the train to Auschwitz concentration camp. She left behind this message scribbled on a scrap of paper and thrown from the train for her Mother Superior: Ave Crux, Spes Unica ("Hail Cross, Our Only Hope").

1942, August 9—She was martyred in the gas chambers.

1998, October 11—Quote at her canonization by St Pope John Paul II who also was the Pope who beatified her in 1987. She was canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church and declared as one of six co-patron saints of Europe.

“Because she was Jewish, Edith Stein was taken with her sister Rosa and many other Catholics and Jews from the Netherlands to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where she died with them in the gas chambers. Today we remember them all with deep respect. A few days before her deportation, the woman religious had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: ‘Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed.’”

Fr JM Manzano SJ