[maryz]

Here it is! I hope everyone keeps the tone up to the civilized and serious level of First Things!

[Salvation]

All is forgiven in a Confession at the end of one’s life. Doesn’t that make this whole thing a moot statement?

[NYer]

She might be the most uniquely problematic Jew for us since Saul of Tarsus.

St. Edith Stein, pray for us!

[AnAmericanMother]

This states the problem fairly, I believe.

The 'ecumenical' approach is simply to ignore this problem -- and that can't be right because the conflicting claims of Judaism and Christianity are the elephant in the living room.

But, when all is said and done, this is a family argument -- and we are still family.

I think it is better to be honest and acknowledge the conflicting claims here, but still treat each other with respect -- as we would a beloved sister or brother who has made a choice with which we do not agree.

[narses]

+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic Ping List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to all note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.

[Siobhan]

Thank you very much for posting this. I gained a great deal from reading it.

[SaintDismas]

In other words, we are so right, and they are so wrong, and visca versa, and never will we agree. Ho hum, big yawn, what’s new? But yes, respect should always be a given

[unspun]

About that word, "saint."

"I don't think it means what you think it means."

[Salvation]

American Catholic’s Saint of the Day

August 9, 2007

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

(1891-1942)

A brilliant philosopher who stopped believing in God when she was 14, Edith Stein was so captivated by reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila that she began a spiritual journey that led to her Baptism in 1922. Twelve years later she imitated Teresa by becoming a Carmelite, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Born into a prominent Jewish family in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), Edith abandoned Judaism in her teens. As a student at the University of Göttingen, she became fascinated by phenomenology, an approach to philosophy. Excelling as a protégé of Edmund Husserl, one of the leading phenomenologists, Edith earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1916. She continued as a university teacher until 1922 when she moved to a Dominican school in Speyer; her appointment as lecturer at the Educational Institute of Munich ended under pressure from the Nazis.

After living in the Cologne Carmel (1934-38), she moved to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands. The Nazis occupied that country in 1940. In retaliation for being denounced by the Dutch bishops, the Nazis arrested all Dutch Jews who had become Christians. Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.

Pope John Paul II beatified Teresa Benedicta in 1987 and canonized her in 1998.

Comment:

The writings of Edith Stein fill 17 volumes, many of which have been translated into English. A woman of integrity, she followed the truth wherever it led her. After becoming a Catholic, Edith continued to honor her mother’s Jewish faith. Sister Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D. , translator of several of Edith’s books, sums up this saint with the phrase, “Learn to live at God’s hands.”

Quote:

In his homily at the canonization Mass, Pope John Paul II said: “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.’”

Addressing himself to the young people gathered for the canonization, the pope 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.”