Sunday 9 August 2020

endliches und ewiges sein

Along with Bridget of Sweden, Benedict of Nursia, Sts Cyril and Methodius and Catherine of Siena, Edith Stein—taking the religious name of Teresia Benedicta a Cruce—who is venerated as a martyr for her murder in Auschwitz, along with her younger sister and nine hundred eighty-five others in the same deportation, on this day in 1942 (*1891) is considered one of the six co-patrons of Europe and is the only one from the modern era.
Philosopher, teacher, women’s rights advocate, Stein was of Jewish heritage but was not practicing and was later an avowed atheist until turning to the writings of church reformer Teresa of รvila (see above) to help her process the human toll the Great War had and was member of the community and on staff at religious schools in Speyer and Kรถln and tempered her theological beliefs with scholarship and introspection, authoring several metaphysical treatises, including On the Problem of Empathy, Finite and Eternal Being and The Science of the Cross. Stein’s protestations to the pope may have encouraged the Vatican’s censure of the Third Reich but the timidity of the papacy paled Stein’s deserved criticism. Stein is called on for intercession by the converted, called or coersed and is the patroness of orphans and the displaced.