Homily – Feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
Introduction:
Today, 9th August, we celebrate the feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
I want to share with you how the Holy Spirit touched, guided and sustained one truly good and beautiful human being in her journey through life.
At the end of her story, I will share a hymn to the Holy Spirit composed by her, and then I will conclude with a reference to the Spirit within our own lives.
The person I am speaking of was a Jewish woman. Her name was Edith Stein, known to us now as Sr. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Carmelite Nun.
Edith’s story:
Born in 1891, Edith grew up in a devout Jewish family in Breslau, Germany, but in her early adolescence she ceased to practice her Jewish faith. She would go to the synagogue each week with her mother but her heart was not there. Instead, she said she would rely on reason in her quest for truth and for solving life’s questions.
She was a brilliant student, who grew to become a profound philosopher and a persuasive lecturer and author. She had great influence on the women of her day. She became the assistant collaborator of Professor Husserl, the famous founder of the school of philosophy called phenomenology. The Professor greatly appreciated her brilliant mind.
You may ask then, how did the Holy Spirit win or conquer her heart and provide the answer to her quest for truth?
One evening while baby-sitting for a friend, Edith casually picked up a book from her friend’s library. It happened to be the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, the great Spanish Carmelite mystic and reformer. Edith read the book right through the night and on closing it in the early hours of the morning, she simply said to herself, “This is the Truth!”
There was no argument. She had found her answer to life’s real quests and questions.
A short time later, on 1 January 1922, Edith was baptised a Christian, and at that point wanted to become a Discalced Carmelite nun in the Cologne Carmel. Her spiritual director, however, felt she had an important public role to play as a teacher and lecturer. So he counselled ‘this was not the time.’
A few years later when it was evident that Edith would not get any important educational position because she was a Jew, he gave permission. It was such a difficult time to be a Jew.
In 1933 on a visit to her spiritual director, some months before she entered Carmel, she stopped off at the Cologne Carmel to attend a Holy Hour. Later she wrote of that hour to a friend:
“I spoke with the Saviour to tell him that I realized it was his Cross that was now being laid upon the Jewish people, that the few who understood this had the responsibility of carrying it in the name of all, and that I myself was willing to do this, if he would only show me how. I left that service with the inner conviction that I had been heard, but uncertain as ever as to what “carrying the Cross” would mean for me.”
That was her letter to a friend in 1933.
She was convinced that as a Jew she was called to share in her peoples’ suffering; and as a German she constantly faced the question, and these are her words, “Who will atone for what is happening to the Jewish people in the name of the people of Germany: Who will turn this enormous guilt into a blessing for both peoples?”
Six years later, in 1939, she wrote her Final Testament in the Carmel of Echt, Holland, where she had sought refuge.
“I joyfully accept in advance the death God has appointed for me, in perfect submission to his most holy will. May the Lord accept my life and death for the honour and glory of his name, for the needs of his holy Church – especially for the preservation, sanctification and final perfecting of our holy Order, and in particular for the Carmels of Cologne and Echt – for the Jewish people, that the Lord may be received by his own and his kingdom come in glory, for the deliverance of Germany and peace throughout the world, and finally, for all my relatives living and dead and all whom God has given me: may none of them be lost.”
Three years later, on Sunday, 7 August, 1942, the Dutch Hierarchy had a letter read in all the Catholic Churches complaining of the cruel and unjust treatment of the Jewish People.
That same Sunday afternoon, the Gestapo came to the Carmel of Echt in Holland. They collected Edith and her sister, Rosa, who had also become a Christian and was living in the Carmel as an employee.
Edith’s seven last words were to Rosa. In German they went like this,
“Rosa, lass us gehen fur unsere Volk!”
“Rose, let us go now for our people.”
Both were gassed in Auschwitz two days later, 9 August 1942.
Pope John Paul II canonized her on 11 October 1998 and proclaimed her Patron Saint of Europe.
*****
Edith Stein’s Hymn to the Holy Spirit
Who are you kindly light who fill me now and brighten all the darkness of my heart?
You guide me forward like a mother’s hand, and if you let me go, I could not take a single step alone.
You are the space embracing all my being, hidden in it.
Loosened from you, I fall in the abyss of nothingness, from which you draw my life.
Nearer to me than I myself am and more within me than my inmost self,
You are outside my grasp, beyond my reach
And what name can contain you You, Holy Spirit, You, eternal Love?
Conclusion:
I have wondered, how often did Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross repeat this prayer to herself as the train journeyed to Auschwitz, or did she simply live it?
You fill me now and brighten all the darkness of my heart?
You guide me forward like a mother’s hand,
The reason for sharing this powerful story for her feast day is simply to acknowledge the breathtaking work of the Holy Spirit not just in the life of Edith Stein but also in ours.
We each have a story, and the Holy Spirit is there every inch of the way - in the words of Edith, ‘like a mother’s hand’.
How would we write a hymn to the Holy Spirit?
- What words would we find to express our surprise and wonder, our deep gratitude and joy for the way the Holy Spirit has touched us throughout our lives, even to this very moment?
- “You brighten all the darkness of my heart
- “You guide me forward like a mother’s hand . . .”
What words would we choose to celebrate our gratitude and joy?
Frank Gerry SVD