Feast Day: 

August 9th

Patronage: 

Europe, loss of parents,martyrs, World Youth Day

About St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross:

Edith Stein was born to Jewish parents in Germany and was the youngest of eleven children. Her father passed away when she was two years old and left her mother to run their timber business and family. By the time Edith was a teenager, she considered herself an atheist and gave up her prayer life.

Edith’s mother insisted on sending all of her children to school. Edith attended University of Breslau to study History and German, but quickly became interested in Philosophy. She eventually got her doctorate in Philosophy studying under Edmund Husserl, a premier phenomenologist.

Studying under Husserl led Edith to discover Christianity. She read St. Teresa of Avila’s autobiography and when she finished the book, she realized she found the truth in the Catholic Church.

Edith was baptized on January 1, 1922, and was later confirmed. While she knew she belonged to God, Edith never forgot her Jewish roots. She started to give talks and continue her academic writings on faith and truth. In 1933, Edith made took her vows and became a Carmelite nun right as Nazi Germany started to rise.

Edith took the name Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross because she understood what it meant to be in union with God through the cross. In 1938, she was smuggled across the border to the Netherlands because the Nazi’s were gaining strength.

It was at the convent that Sr. Teresa and her recently converted sister, Rosa, were arrested by the Gestapo. The Stein sisters were put in a transit camp and transferred to Auschwitz on August 7, 1942, and on August 9, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in a gas chamber.

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Sources:
Vatican
EWTN