August 9 2021 - St. Edith Stein - Seeker of Truth

 On August 9 on the new calendar, is celebrated St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein who converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher. 

As a young girl, Edith’s intellectual gifts were quite evident, but by her teenage years, she became a self-proclaimed agnostic. Maybe some of you here can relate. Critical thinking and the desire for the truth led Edith to study philosophy. She became a pupil and assistant of the renowned philosopher Edmund Husserl. In the course of her studies Edith met several Catholics whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired.

In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January, 1922. 10 years later, she entered the Carmelite Convent. 1932. Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany.

Though the Jews were the principle victims of the Nazi’s in World War II, millions of Catholics, including bishops, priests, and nuns were murdered in the concentration camps.  In 1942, the Nazi’s arrested Sister Teresa Benedicta.  She and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, were transported to Auschwitz in Poland by boxcar.  One week later, Sister was murdered in a gas chamber. She is celebrated as a virgin martyr.

In 1998, the german nun was canonized by the Polish Pope Saint John Paul II, who also proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe the following year.

At her canonization, Saint John Paul said, “For a long time Edith Stein was a seeker. Her mind never tired of searching and her heart always yearned for hope. She traveled the arduous path of philosophy with passionate enthusiasm. Eventually she was rewarded: she seized the truth. Or better: she was seized by it. Then she discovered that truth had a name: Jesus Christ. From that moment on, the incarnate Word was her One and All.”

I think these words of holy Father Pope St. John Paul give us great hope. Like young Edith Stein, so many young people are searching for the truth. They want lives full of meaning—more than their parents in some respects. They are rejecting the rampant materialism and perversion and promiscuity of the sexual revolution and banal emptiness offered by the internet culture. Like so many of you, they are turning to the true, good, and beautiful of our Catholic faith.

St. John Paul named St. Theresa Benedicta co-patroness of Europe because she is a needed example for the young people of Europe, as a model to emulate in always remaining a seeker of the Truth. She, no doubt, should be invoked for our own nation, our own people, for the same purpose. That new generations may hunger for something more than the emptiness offered by the culture of death, and seek truth, goodness, and beauty in Christ for the glory of God and salvation of souls. 

For all those who wander in atheism, agnosticism, those who are cynical towards Catholicism, for moral relativists, and those who reject the Faith, and all lapsed Catholics, that the Holy Spirit will help them discover the Truth of Christ. 

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That the Holy Father, the Bishops and all Clergy and Religious will be shining examples of fidelity to the Truth.

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased priests and religious, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom. We pray.

O God, who know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.

August 9 2019 - St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross - Chosen for the cross

Today we celebrate Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.  She was born—Edith Stein— the 11th child of a large family of orthodox jews in Germany in 1891.  Her life came to an end 50 years later in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.  By then she was a Carmelite nun who had converted to Catholicism.  Though the Jews were the principle victims of the Nazi’s in World War II, millions of Catholics, including bishops, priests, and nuns were murdered in the concentration camps.

While attending university, the young jewish girl, Edith Stein began to develop a strong interest in Catholic belief and thinkers. After reading the autobiography of St. Theresa of Avila, she asked to be baptized.

10 years later she imitated Theresa of Avila by entering the Carmelite convent and took the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.  It was 1933, Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of Germany.
In 1942, the Nazi’s arrested Sister Teresa.  She and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, were transported to Auschwitz in Poland by boxcar.  One week later, Sister Teresa died in a gas chamber.

Perhaps St. Teresa Benedicta had today’s Gospel in mind when she wrote, “One cannot desire freedom from the cross when one is especially chosen for the cross.” As Christians we have been chosen for the cross. Our Lord says, each of us must “take up his cross, and follow” him to the cross.

Jesus demands a commitment of faith that is ready to embrace the will of God wherever it leads, even unto death. We in 2019 Cleveland were chosen for the difficult task of spreading the Gospel in an increasingly secular culture. We were chosen to endure sufferings for the Gospel—for the difficult conversations, for speaking truth in the face of relativism.

Those who seek happiness in life only by pursuing their own interests will never be fulfilled. Only by giving one’s self to God and others do we experience the lasting fulfillment God wants for us, only by embracing the cross will we find salvation for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For all those who wander in atheism, agnosticism, those who are cynical towards Catholicism, for moral relativists, and those who reject the Faith, and all lapsed Catholics, that the Holy Spirit will help them discover the Truth of Christ.
That the Holy Father, the Bishops and all Clergy and Religious will be shining examples of fidelity to the Truth.
That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering.
For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased priests and religious, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom. We pray.
O God, who know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.

August 14 2017 - St Maximilian Kolbe - Zeal for souls and love of neighbor

Today’s Saint died a heroic death in a Nazi concentration camp in 1941.

Born in Poland in 1894, Maximilian Kolbe entered the Conventual Franciscans at the age of 16.  He developed a strong devotion to Mary, a devotion that would offer him great solace in his final days.
Ordained at 24, Fr. Kolbe saw religious indifference as the deadliest poison of the day. Indifference is the belief that all roads, religious or not, lead to happiness, human flourishing, and eternal life. One needs to only point to the violence, war, man-made human suffering in the world, to show this philosophy to be in error, and yet, indifference continues to flourish in our own time.

To combat the growing religious indifference in early 20th century Poland, Fr. Kolbe founded the Militia of the Immaculata, whose aim was to fight evil with the witness of the Catholic life, prayer, work, penance, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Fr. Kolbe started a religious magazine under Mary’s patronage, Knight of the Immaculata magazine, to help spread the message of the Faith.

As hostilities grew toward Catholics and particularly the clergy during World War II, Fr. Kolbe prayed to Mary for guidance. “What will happen to me,” he prayed.  And she appeared to him, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red.  She asked if he would like to have them—white for purity, the other for martyrdom.  He said to her, “I choose both.”  She smiled and disappeared.  And his life would never be the same.

During the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, his small town was bombed and he and his fellow friars were arrested.  Arrest came again in 1941.  Without trial or sentence, Fr. Kolbe was transported to Auschwitz where he managed to hear confessions and celebrate Mass using smuggled bread and wine.  His “zeal for souls and love of neighbor” impelled him to minister to his fellow prisoners at risk to his own life.

One day, several prisoners managed to escape.  In retaliation, 10 men from his block were selected to die.  When a married Jewish man with a family was among them, Fr. Maximilian asked to take his place.  The stunned Nazi officer agreed to the exchange.  Fr. Kolbe and the other nine men were stripped, locked in a cell, and left to die without food or water.  After two weeks, some, including Maximilian were still alive.  They were injected with carbolic acid, and their remains were thrown into an oven. Such is the result of religious indifference.  The Jewish man Fr. Kolbe saved attended his canonization in 1982.

Father Kolbe’s death was not a sudden, last-minute act of heroism. His whole life had been a preparation. His holiness, his passionate desire to convert the whole world to God, was limitless.
We pray that through Fr. Kolbe’s intercession, and with the aid and protection of the Immaculate, whom he loved so dearly, that we too may give witness to importance and saving power of the Catholic faith in all we do, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That religious indifference in our country and around the world may be transformed to radical commitment to the Gospel of Christ.

For the transformation of all attitudes which lead to war, violence, racial hatred, and religious persecution.

For deeper devotion to Immaculate Mary, for the conversion of Atheists, hardened sinners, lapsed Catholics, and the conversion of all hearts.

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased priests and religious, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.