9 August 2023 – Wednesday of 18th week of ordinary time – Edith Stein – Matthew 15:21-28, Psalm 106

      The story of the Canaanite woman has always intrigued me, especially in the way in which it allows Jesus to grow in his ministry and in the way Jesus sees that his message of salvation is intended all. As we have been hearing the story of Moses and the people of Israel these past few weeks at daily Mass, we know that the people of Israel were God’s chosen people. Yet, God had plans for the whole world when he sent his son, plans that the Apostles put into place as they went out as missionaries to the world, to people of every race and every nation. The Canaanite woman challenges that narrow view of salvation that was prevalent in Ancient Israel in her day. In her faith, she is persistent and patient; through her faith, Jesus brings healing into her life. 

     We hear in today’s psalm: “Remember us, O Lord.”  I thought about those words in the context of our saint for today, Edith Stein. whose name as a Carmelite nun was Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was born in the German empire in the late 19th century to an observant Jewish family.  She earned a PhD in philosophy and became a professor at a university, but along the way became an atheist, abandoning her Jewish faith.  Her study of the writings of St Teresa of Avila drew her to Catholicism. She writes about how Teresa’s writings touched her: “This was my first encounter with the cross and with the supernatural strength it gives. For the first time I saw the redemptive sufferings of Christ overcoming death.”  After her conversion, she became a Carmelite nun at the age of 43. As the Nazis gained power, she was transferred to a convent in the Netherlands in the midst of  WWII, where she was thought to be safe, but a statement read in Catholic parishes in that country in 1942 condemning the Nazis brought about the imprisonment of Jewish converts to Catholicism in that country. After spending time in different concentration camps, she died in Auschwitz at the age of 50 in 1942. She was canonized in 1998. Edith Stein, Bridget of Sweden, and Catherine of Sienna are all co-patron saints of Europe.  

    We look into the human heart at the grace of God that can be at work in our hearts, but we also see a lot of violence and destruction that can come out of our human heart as well. We see the horror of WWII and acts of terrorism; we wonder what goes on in those human hearts. God calls us to his love and to the salvation he offers us.  May we open our hearts to that reality.