This past week we celebrated St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was a Jewish convert to Catholicism and was a brilliant philosopher and theologian. She would teach in schools across Germany until anti-semitic laws did not allow her to continue. She joined the discalced carmelites in Cologne, but in 1939 she moved to Holland due to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. In 1942, with the Nazi invasion of Holland, she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz where she would be martyred for her faith on August 9th. Along with Sts. Catherine of Sienna and Bridget of Sweden she was named co-patroness of Europe by St. John Paul II.
If one were to dig into her writings, they would discover the deep suffering she experienced and the great love she had for our Eucharistic Lord. This quote is one of my favorites from her. It deeply describes so much of the Eucharist and the power it can have in our lives
“In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced, the kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together. Here is for us the source of life. This heart is the heart of the Triune Divinity, and the center of all human hearts... It draws us to itself with secret power, it conceals us in itself in the Father's bosom and floods us with the Holy Spirit. This heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle where it remains mysteriously hidden in that still, white host.”
This week, let us ask Jesus for a deeper love of his Most Sacred Heart present in the Eucharist.
In Christ,
Fr. Andrew