About St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

This week I am learning about St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Her name was actually Edith Stein. She was born to a prominent Jewish family in 1891 in Breslau, Poland. Her spiritual life saw some major transitions even as a young woman, eventually leading her to Catholicism and the Carmelite order, before dying at the hands of the Nazis.

Edith’s mother was a devout Jewish woman who taught her children about their faith. Unfortunately, Edith rejected her faith when she was 14 years old saying, “she saw little evidence that most believers, whether Jew or Christian, really believed. If there was nothing there, she wasn’t going to play the game.” (cited here, para 2)

Academic Life

Even as a child, Edith was a strong student. She studied philosophy and worked with some of Europe’s leading philosophers as a young woman. In particular, she became a follower of Edmund Husserl and served as his assistant. Husserl’s work accounts for some of the roots of existentialism, and led to the development of phenomenology, “which is based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events (‘phenomena’) as they are perceived or understood in the human consciousness, and not of anything independent of human consciousness” (cited here)

From this foundation, Edith went on to contribute to the academic study of philosophy, primarily with respect to empathy theory. Empathy can be defined as “an awareness of basic, human interconnection – as the breakthrough for human communication.” (cited here, para 47) The Nazis wanted to discount empathy theory in favor of their belief in racial superiority.

Spiritual Development

While she worked with prominent philosophers, Edith also studied with Christian intellectuals. At some point she read the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, which had a huge impact on her. It is said that she responded simply, “This is the truth!” (also cited here, para 11) After that, Edith was drawn to the Catholic faith. She was baptized in 1922.

Edith left her position as Husserl’s assistant and took a position at a Dominican college in Speyer, Germany. She wanted to become a Carmelite sister, like Teresa of Avila, but “was advised to wait because her conversion had been so hard on her mother.” (cited here, para 12) Eventually, because of Nazi pressures, it became necessary for Edit to take her vows as a  Carmelite, regardless of the difficulty for her mother.  Thus she became Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Sister Teresa Benedicta was still forced by the Nazis to wear a Star of David, and eventually, for her own safety, she fled to a Carmelite monastery in Echt, Holland. However, after Dutch bishops spoke out against the Nazis, Jewish converts to Catholicism in Holland were rounded up and taken to Auschwitz. Sister Teresa and her sister, Rosa, died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.

Miraculous Healing

On August 8, 1984, Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy and his wife, Mary, gave birth to a baby girl. In recognition that her time of birth was actually “sunrise, August 9, at Auschwitz,” (cited here, para 30) they named their daughter Teresia Benedicta in honor of Sister Teresa. At age 2, Benedicta, while under the care of her college-aged sister, took so much Tylenol that it became a deadly overdose for her little body.

Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston determined that her liver was hopelessly damaged, so that she would need a transplant to survive. Her aunt suggested that they pray to her namesake, Sister Teresa Benedicta. Thus friends and family started rosaries and prayer chains. Little Benedicta was later miraculously cured, as confirmed by the Jewish head of pediatrics.

Sainthood

Pope John Paul II beatified St. Teresa Benedicta in 1987 and canonized her on October 11, 1998. Writers at Catholic Online summarize her life like this.

“Out of the unspeakable human suffering caused by the Nazis in western Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s, there blossomed the beautiful life of dedication, consecration, prayer, fasting, and penance of Saint Teresia. Even though her life was snuffed out by the satanic evil of genocide, her memory stands as a light undimmed in the midst of evil, darkness, and suffering.” (found here, para 1)

Please stay with me this week as we explore some of the fascinating themes in St. Teresa Benedicta’s life. We will discuss her devotion to truth and trust, her contributions to the study of philosophy, especially empathy theory, and her desire to be respectful of her mother’s Jewish faith.