aeternus

“Happy the virgin who denied herself and took up her cross. She imitated the Lord, the spouse of virgins and prince of martyrs… “

It was with undivided attention to Christ and uniting her cross to His own that today’s saint, Teresa Benedicta, was able to walk in the silent confidence of loving witness and martyrdom in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I often think of Teresa and her testimony when in the liturgy of the hours we remember the three young voices crying out from the fiery furnace, “Blessed be God”. How incredible it seems to me that these holy martyrs have the courage to meet their end with such super human strength. Obviously it is because they understood it was NOT the end but the BEGINNING and have been granted special graces in order to brave such agonies. But these graces surely are only given to souls who are already united so beautifully with our Lord.

In todays office of readings we hear from Edith Stein in her own words:

“Stand before the Lord Who hangs from the cross with
His heart torn open. He poured out the blood of His heart
in order to win your heart. In order to follow Him in holy
chastity, your heart must be free from every earthly
aspiration. Jesus Crucified must be the object of your every
longing, of your every desire, of your every thought.

The world is in flames: the fire can spread even to our
house, but above all the flames the cross stands on high,
and it cannot be burnt. The cross is the way which leads
from earth to heaven. Those who embrace it with faith,
love, and hope are taken up, right into the heart of the
Trinity.

The world is in flames: do you wish to put them out?
Contemplate the cross: from His open heart the blood of the
Redeemer pours, blood which can put out even the flames
of hell. Through the faithful observance of the vows you
make your heart free and open; and then the floods of that
divine love will be able to flow into it, making it overflow
and bear fruit to the furthest reaches of the earth.

Through the power of the cross you can be present
wherever there is pain, carried there by your compassionate
charity, by that very charity, which you draw from the
divine heart. That charity enables you to spread every-
where the most precious blood in order to ease pain, save
and redeem.

The eyes of the Crucified gaze upon you. They question
you and appeal to you. Do you wish seriously to renew
your alliance with Him What will your response be?
“Lord, where shall I go? You alone have the words of life.”
Ave Crux, spes unica!”
I pray that I may meet my cross today with love of our Lord.

_____________

Part II of this post is from the most beautiful Novena to Saint Teresa Benedicta composed by Elias Friedman, O.C.D., founder of the Association of Hebrew Catholics (AHC). The Association now has its headquarters in St. Louis (read the story here). This is the final day of the Novena and the description of life at the time of Edith Stein’s death in Nazi Germany is helpful in explaining her story. There is a link at the bottom to the AHC website and the entire novena.

Novena to Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

Day 9 Sunday, August 9th, 1942
The Auschwitz Extermination Camp

Auschwitz was at that time a small provincial Polish town, which was to give its name to the notorious concentration camp, opened nearby by order of Himmler for political prisoners on April 27, 1940. The first camp was rather small in size and was called, subsequently, Auschwitz I. In October 1941, a far more extensive camp was set up, named after a neighboring village, Auschwitz II-Birkenau (Encyclopaedia Judaica Vol. 3, Coll. 854-871). From March 1942, Jews were directed to the second camp.

Mass murders of Jewish prisoners by Zyklon B (prussic acid) gas was instituted at Birkenau as from January 1942, at the instigation of Adolf Eichmann, who was in overall command of the execution of the “Final Solution” of the Jewish Problem by genocide, decided on by the Nazis at Wansee in 1941. The gassing continued for two years and ten months, during which time a million Jews perished in the camp.

The convoys arrived at the rate of three or four a day; they were usually met at the platform by the Camp Commandant, Rudolph Hoess, later executed for war-crimes, and the infamous Dr. Mengele, who performed the “Selektion”, strong prisoners being separated for forced labor in mines and factories, the remainder being consigned for immediate “elimination.”

The first transport of prisoners from Holland arrived in July 1942; the one carrying our Saint was, perhaps, the third, being preceded by a transport of men which had reached the camp that afternoon.

The newcomers were taken to barracks and told to leave their clothes on a numbered peg, to be retrieved after the shower, which they were falsely led to believe would follow. Women usually had their hair cut off. The prisoners had then to walk four hundred meters along a path till they came to a large room, with tubes running across the ceiling. Force was used to get them to enter, when necessary. The metal doors were locked, levers operated and the gas introduced into the rooms. Twenty to twenty-five minutes later, electric-pumps evacuated the gas, allowing special commando-units to enter and empty the chambers. Not all the victims were dead. Gold dentures were removed and the corpses carted away to be thrown into a common fosse. Crematoria had not yet been installed at Auschwitz; but, later, to obliterate traces of their crimes, the Nazis exhumed the corpses and had them burnt.

From the moment of the arrival of a convoy to the extermination of the victims, no more than an hour and a half would elapse, as a rule. The killing of human beings became a monotonous routine.

Saint Edith, her companions and a thousand other Hebrew Catholics died in the gas-chambers of Auschwitz II-Birkenau on the morning of August 9th from suffocation by prussic acid fumes. She then entered into her glory, accompanied, as we like to believe, by many others.

Visit the Associations of Hebrew Catholics website for the entire, and most beautiful, Novena to Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Listen to the SAINT CAST (podcast) about St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.