Blessed Feast of St Tersa Benedicta (Edith Stein)

Lord, God of our fathers,
you brought Saint Teresa Benedicta
to the fullness of the science of the cross
at the hour of her martyrdom.
Fill us with that same knowledge,
and, through her intercession,
allow us always to seek after you, the supreme truth,
and to remain faithful until death to the covenant of love
ratified in the blood of your Son
for the salvation of all men and women.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
� Amen.

I just love Edith Stein. She is one of my favorite saints. Perhaps because she’s kind of my first best friend. Before I met her I don’t think I really understood what it meant to have a devotion to a saint, to know and love them in a personal way. Going to her canonization in Rome with my parents when I hardly knew who she was opened up this world for me. First I fell in love with her and then with so many other saints. As an intellectual woman, a one-time aspiring academic, she first spoke to me as a role model of the intelligent woman of faith. But she is, of course, so much more than a brilliant philosopher and writer. I love the phrase from today’s prayer, which notes that she came to the fullness of the science of the cross at her martyrdom. She reminds me that faith is more than an intellectual exercise, that it must always lead me to the cross or it is empty dust.