August 9th - St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross By: Jonathan Alapatt

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was born on October 12, 1891 to a Jewish family. Her real name was Edith Stein before she became a Carmelite nun.  Because of World War 1, she became an atheist and worked as a nursing assistant in an infectious diseases hospital. When St. Teresa Benedicta read the works of St. Teresa of Avila, she was led to the Catholic Faith and was baptized on January 1 1922. In October 1922, she was admitted into the Carmelite monastery in Cologne, Germany. She received the religious habit of the Carmelites as a novice in 1934, obtaining the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. During World War 2, she and her sister Rosa were sent to a Carmelite monastery in the Netherlands for safety. In 1940, German Nazis invaded the country and arrested St. Teresa Benedicta, her sister, and other nuns and put them in a concentration camp, where they died on August 9 1942.

INTERCESSORY PRAYER

O St. Teresa of Benedicta, teach us to have faith and read the Word of God just like how you read the works of St. Teresa of Avila and believed. Teach us to pray well so that we can get our daily needs. We ask this through Christ our Lord, Amen.