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St Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein)

The August feasts are a remarkable group, including as they do men of such stature as John Vianney, Dominic, Bernard and John the Baptist, but the women seem to me even more remarkable (may St Bernard forgive me). Any month which includes the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the greatest of all Marian feasts, and today's feast of St Teresa Benedicta must be special.

Edith Stein's story is well known and deeply moving. Her pilgrimage of faith from Judaism through agnosticism to Catholicism and life as a Carmelite nun is one she herself recorded. Her death at Auschwitz is necessarily more sketchily drawn but compelling in the details we have. What has always struck me, however, is that she is a perfect example of a "mind taken captive by Christ". We have become so accustomed to people of brilliant intellect sneering at faith and misusing their gifts to wound others that to find someone whose mind was beautiful with the beauty of Christ is inspiring. The fact that the someone in question was a woman is more encouraging still, because all too often, even today, women in the Church are regarded as good for the flowers and coffee rotas but not much else. Nuns, alas, hardly figure, unless they conform to the dread stereotype of what a nun should be (and before I am taken to task for this, let me assure you that I know whereof I speak!) so it is good to find one who breaks the mould, so to say, and comes across as a real person. In St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross we have a saint whose personal flaws and shortcomings were gradually transformed by grace until she herself became an alter Christus. May she pray for us all.

For those who enjoy listening to talks, there are two more on our Talks page: an introduction to the medieval English mystic, Walter Hilton, and a recording of his Parable of the Pilgrim to Jerusalem, probably the best-loved part of his Scale of Perfection. The Digitalnun Daily likewise continues this week although I prophesy that it may fizzle out like Google Wave with the end of the Silly Season.