09 August - St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was born in Breslau, Germany, on 12 October 1891. Her real name is Edith Stein and her parents are Jewish.
Although she was brought up in the Jewish faith, at one time she distanced herself from the faith, religion and her studies led her to seek the truth and to listen respectfully to all. Edith Stein was one of the few women at the time to attend university. And Husserl's teaching had such an impact on her life that she also became a professor of philosophy at the University of Breslau.
Edith Stein became interested in faith and religion, gradually becoming more and more inclined to follow Jesus Christ, despite her family's lack of understanding of this choice. In 1921, after reading the works of Thomas Aquinas and Saint Teresa of Avila, she asked to be baptized in the Catholic Church. So she combined this faith with her philosophical knowledge and taught it for ten years. Her main objective was to emphasize the Christian vision of humanity.
With the rise of the Nazi regime, Edith Stein joined the Cologne Carmelite convent in 1933 and took the name of Teresa Benedicta de la Croix. She fought evil by fleeing from the life of the world, and tried to reach the life of Christ on the cross. She suffered the persecution of Christians together with the people. Edith Stein was forced to flee to the Netherlands. She was arrested in the Carmelite convent in Echt for witnessing to Christ and was taken to Auschwitz prison near Krakow, Poland. Eight days later she died. In other words, on August 9, 1942. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 11, 1988.
