Daybreak

Saturday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time Optional Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, 1891-1942; brilliant philosopher from a Jewish family, she stopped believing in God at age 14; but the autobiography of St. Teresa so captivated Edith Stein that it led her to baptism in 1922; twelve years later, she became a Carmelite nun, taking the name, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross; she spent four years in the Cologne Carmel, and then moved to the Carmel in Echt, Netherlands; the Nazis occupied that country in 1940; they arrested all Jews who had become Christians; Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa--who was also Catholic--died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz in 1942 Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 8/9/25 Gospel: Matthew 17:14-20