August 9 - Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891, in the Breslau, Germany. After the Second World War the city became known as Wroclaw, the capital of Silesia. Her parents, Sigfred and Auguste, were dedicated to business and were Jewish. Sigfried died before Edith was two years old, and her mother had to carry the weight of the business and the education of her children. In 1916 she completes her doctoral thesis regarding empathy and she works as Husserl’s assistant until 1918. Her serious phenomenological studies allows her to reach a profound knowledge of the Catholic Church. Yet, her definitive conversion was in 1921 reading the Autobiography of St. Teresa of Jesus. She is finally baptized in 1922 and receives the name, Teresa Edwig. At age 42, on the 15th of April 1934 she is given the Carmelite Habit in the convent at Cologne. Soon the atmosphere in Germany gets complicated and she had a premonition about what awaited her in the future. On August 7, 1942, members of the SS present themselves in the convent and arrest both of them and take them to the Concentration Camp in Auschwitz. Edith consumes her vocation in martyrdom offering her life for God. She was canonized as Martyr in 1998. Later, in October 1999, she was declared patron of Europe along with St. Brigid and St. Catherine.