Wroclaw – the place of preaching the Kingdom of God, calling of the disciples, and miracles of Jesus Wrocław
Thursday – XVI week of Ordinary Time
PATRON OF DAY: Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
Edith Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was born on 12 October 1891 in Breslau (now Wrocław) into a wealthy and large Jewish family as the youngest of the siblings. Her father died when she was almost two years old; since then her mother looked after children as well as she ran a timber business. In her teenage years Edith Stein quit Judaism and got captivated by her new passion: science. She studied pedagogy, philosophy, history and German at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Breslau (now The University of Wrocław). Later she earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Göttingen. She also met there Max Scheler, which made her encounter catholic principles cherished by him.
After World War I in the summer of 1921, while visiting her friend in Bad Bergzabern, Edith Stein read the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. She recalls in her own autobiography: “I picked a book at random and took out a large volume. It bore the title The Life of St. Teresa of Avila. I began to read, was at once captivated, and did not stop till I had reached the end. As I closed the book – it was already dawn – I said, ‘This is the truth’.” This book had such a great impact on her that she decided to ask for baptism in the Catholic Church. On 13 October 1933 she entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
In 1938 when anti-Semitic actions by the German Nazis escalated, Edith Stein left for the convent in Echt in the Netherlands. However, even there did the persecution of the Jews increase. On 2 August 1942 Edith Stein was arrested by Gestapo and deported to Auschwitz where on 9 August 1942 she was murdered in the gas chamber.
On 1 May 1987 in Cologne the pope John Paul II beatified Edith Stein and on 11 October 1998 he canonized her. One year later the pope declared Edith Stein co-patroness of Europe.
Edith Stein was involved in very rich educational and scholarly activities, in particular philosophical analyses. She prepared translations of writings by St. Thomas Aquinas and also by blessed John Henry Newman. As a Carmelite nun of incredibly rich spiritual life, she expressed beauty and value of mystical experiences in her work on St. John of the Cross entitled The Science of the Cross.
If you wish to find out more about Edith Stein, we cordially invite you to visit the following website:
The link: http://www.edytastein.org.pl/en/