In particular, Edith [Stein] made her own the suffering of the Jewish people, even as this reached its apex in the barbarous Nazi persecution which remains, together with other terrible instances of totalitarianism, one of the darkest and most shameful stains on the Europe of our century. At the time, she felt that in the systematic extermination of the Jews the Cross of Christ was being laid on her people, and she herself took personal part in it by her deportation and execution in the infamous camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her voice merged with the cry of all the victims of that appalling tragedy, but at the same time was joined to the cry of Christ on the Cross which gives to human suffering a mysterious and enduring fruitfulness. The image of her holiness remains for ever linked to the tragedy of her violent death, alongside all those who with her suffered the same fate. And it remains as a proclamation of the Gospel of the Cross, with which she identified herself by the very choice of her name in religion ... Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.



From the Letter of Pope John Paul II naming her, with St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Catherine of Siena, as one of the co-patronesses of Europe.





Today is the memorial of Saint Edith Stein, 1891-1942, Carmelite, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.