On the Feast Day of Saint Edith Stein

“Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love.  And do not accept anything as love is it lacks the truth.  One without the other is a destructive lie.

When you seek truth you seek God, whether you know it or not.

My God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You.  Kindle your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. 

I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace.”

Edith Stein


"Dear brothers and sisters.  Because she was Jewish, Edith Stein was taken with her sister Rosa and many other Jews from the Netherlands to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where she died with them in the gas chambers.  Today we remember them all with deep respect. 

From now on, as we celebrate the memory of this new saint from year to year, we must also remember the Shoah, that cruel plan to exterminate a people — a plan to which millions of our Jewish brothers and sisters fell victim.  May the Lord let his face shine upon them and grant them peace.

For the love of God and man, once again I raise an anguished cry.   May such criminal deeds never be repeated against any ethnic group, against any race, in any corner of this world.   It is a cry to everyone, to all people of goodwill, to all who believe in the Just and Eternal God, to all who know they are joined to Christ, the Word of God made man.  We must all stand together—  human dignity is at stake.

There is only one human family.  The new saint also insisted on this:  'Our love of neighbour is the measure of our love of God.   For Christians — and not only for them — no one is a ‘stranger’.  The love of Christ knows no borders'".

John Paul II, On the Canonization of Edith Stein, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross