Feast of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

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Thursday, 9 August 2018 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the readings from the Scriptures today remind us of the renewal of God’s loving Covenant with all of us, His people, through what He has spoken via the prophet Jeremiah. The prophet mentioned about God having shown His mercy to His people whom He would gather and forgive, as He is their God and He no longer remembered their sins.

That is precisely just how wonderful is His love for us, and how great His mercy is for us. He has shown all of us, each one of us His magnificent and compassionate heart, always filled with love for us and desiring to forgive us from our sins and disobedience. God has given us this great grace through none other than His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is our Saviour and our Hope.

And in today’s Gospel, we heard of the account of the Lord Jesus and His Apostles, in which He asked them Who they heard the people thought He was. And they all gave many answers, of the prophets and various holy people God has sent into the world. Then, Jesus asked them again, personally, Who they thought He truly was, and St. Peter answered with courage and faith, that He is the Son of God, Messiah and Saviour.

The Lord Jesus saw the faith in St. Peter and through that faith, He entrusted to him the governance and shepherding of His whole Church, as the foundation of that same Church He established in this world. St. Peter and the other Apostles are the strong base and foundation of this Church through which God exercised His authority and power to bring all mankind away from damnation because of their sins.

He gave St. Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and by this act, He gave His Church the authority and the ability to bring souls towards salvation and liberation from the bondage to their sins and disobedience. He has given all of us the obligation and duty to help our fellow brethren, all those who are still lost to the Lord and separated from His grace and love.

Therefore, each and every one of us are called to live our lives with faith and devotion to the Lord, so that by our exemplary attitude and actions, we may inspire many others to live their lives with faith to the fullest as well. And today, we celebrate the feast of one of our holy and good predecessor in faith, who has shown great faith in her life and in her actions. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also better known as St. Edith Stein, is truly an example for all of us.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was once a Jewish woman and later on atheist, who was a philosopher, and having the chance to encounter the Christian faith and truth, and eventually having found the truth in the Christian faith, she turned to the faith and became a Christian. Her pursuit of the truth and the knowledge of God eventually inspired her to join a religious order, and she became a Carmelite nun.

She lived her vocation faithfully and was involved in educating the young in the community. However, at that time, in Germany where St. Teresa Benedicta lived, rising anti-Jewish sentiments stoked by the NAZI party was growing stronger and stronger, eventually culminating in their takeover of power in Germany. Thus began the infamous persecution and genocide of the Jews that in the end caused millions to perish throughout Europe and beyond.

St. Teresa Benedicta, being born racially as a Jew, did not escape this fate, and she together with many others were arrested and eventually brought to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp and was martyred just days later through gassing in the gas chamber. The story of her piety, courage and commitment to the cause of her faith even amidst persecution and challenges continue to inspire many people right down to this time and era.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, if St. Teresa Benedicta was able to commit herself to live faithfully to the message of the Gospel of Christ, why can’t we then do the same with our own lives? Why can’t we devote ourselves in the same manner as those who have gone before us, and showed us what it means to become a holy disciple and follower of God? We must realise that all of us have an obligation to do what the Lord had told us to do, and to live our lives to the best of our abilities, as those who walk in God’s path.

May God be with us in this journey of faith and life, may He empower each one of us to live ever more in accordance with His will, day after day. May the Lord bless us all and our endeavours, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 9 August 2018 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 16 : 13-23

At that time, Jesus came to Caesarea Philippi. He asked His disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They said, “For some of them, You are John the Baptist; for others Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

Jesus asked them, “But you, who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “It is well for you, Simon Barjona, for it is not flesh or blood that has revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.”

“And now I say to you : You are Peter; and on this Rock I will build My Church; and never will the powers of death overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven : whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you unbind on earth shall be unbound in heaven.”

Then He ordered His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ. From that day, Jesus began to make it clear to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem; that He would suffer many things from the Jewish authorities, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law; and that He would be killed and be raised on the third day.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to reproach Him, “Never, Lord! No, this must never happen to You!” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an obstacle in My path. You are thinking not as God does, but as people do.”

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Thursday, 9 August 2018 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 50 : 12-13, 14-15, 18-19

Create in me, o God, a pure heart; give me a new and steadfast spirit. Do not cast me out of Your presence nor take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Give me again the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will show wrongdoers Your ways and sinners will return to You.

You take no pleasure in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, You would not delight in it. O God, my sacrifice is a broken spirit; a contrite heart You will not despise.

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Thursday, 9 August 2018 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Jeremiah 31 : 31-34

The time is coming – it is YHVH Who speaks – when I will forge a new Covenant with the people of Israel and the people of Judah. It will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. For they broke My Covenant although I was their Master, YHVH declares.

This is the Covenant I shall make with Israel after that time : I will put My Law within them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God and they will be My people. And they will not have to teach each other, neighbour or brother, saying : ‘Know YHVH,’ because they will all know Me, from the greatest to the lowliest, for I will forgive their wrongdoing and no longer remember their sin.

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Wednesday, 9 August 2017 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard how the people of Israel rebelled against the Lord at the time when they were about to enter into the Promised Land of Canaan after God had led them through the desert from their slavery in Egypt. The scouts who were sent forth to survey the land ahead of the people incited the people to turn against God and against Moses, His servant, charging that they have been led to a land of danger and harm, not trusting in the power and providence of God, which He surely would have given them.

Israel failed to understand that God was with them all the way throughout their journey, even though they have seen in many occasions the great wonders of God, His works and His efforts, from the ten plagues He sent to the Egyptians and their Pharaoh to pressure them to let the Israelites to go free, to the opening of the Red Sea and the destruction of the armies of the Egyptians, to the care and love which He showered them with through the desert, providing them with food and water, protection from their enemies and all others.

That is why God punished them all, by making them to wander through the desert for another forty years, in the process letting all those who have rejected His love to perish in the desert, except for Caleb, the only one among the scouts to remain faithful and trusting in God, as well as Joshua, the faithful right hand man to Moses and his successor as the leader over all of Israel.

They had faith in their own power, their own intellect and their own ways, instead of listening to the Lord and obeying His will. And this is linked to what we have heard in the Gospel passage today, in which we witnessed how our Lord Jesus interacted with a Syro-Phoenician or Canaanite woman, who was not considered to belong among the people of Israel.

We must have wondered why did the Lord Jesus said such things to the woman, who begged Him to heal her daughter who was possessed by an evil spirit. Why did He rebuke her and seemingly rejected her request to have her daughter healed? And He was even comparing her to the lowly and unworthy dogs begging for the food from the master of the table. Why is this so, brothers and sisters in Christ?

The truth is that, our Lord Jesus was merely displaying to all of us the reality of the situation at that time, the prejudice and the attitude which the people of Israel, the Jewish people showed against their non-Jewish or also known as Gentiles, neighbours. The Jews looked down on their neighbours because they took pride in their status as the chosen people of God, and looked at others with contempt as if they were unworthy of God's love.

That is why, literally, they treated the pagan nations and the Gentiles as if they were below par, as what Jesus had illustrated in His interaction with the Syro-Phoenician woman. But, the Lord Jesus showed just how faithful that woman had been, much more so than the people of Israel had been. The same case was evident from another part of the Gospels, where the army centurion who was likely to be a Gentile or non-Jew, was praised by the Lord for his faith which the Lord had not seen even among the Jews.

What is the lesson that all of us must learn from what we have heard in today's Scripture passages? It is that we must never have prejudice against others, but instead we must help each other on our journey towards the Lord. There has been plenty of sorrow and suffering caused throughout the history of this world when we mankind showed prejudice to our fellow men, and discriminate, just because we thought that it is right to do so.

The scouts were prejudiced against the inhabitants of Canaan, thinking that because they were all fearsome and powerful, they would rather trust in their own judgment instead of trusting in God's providence, therefore resulting in the people of God falling into sin. Yet, still others used prejudice as a method to achieve their own selfish agenda and objective, one of the worst of which is the Holocaust during the Second World War, a great atrocity against humanity by the NAZI German government.

Today it also happened that we celebrate the feast of one of the many victims of that terrible Holocaust, namely St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also better known by her name, St. Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to the Christian faith, who then joined the religious order of the Discalced Carmelites. She was remembered for her great many works and writings, involvement in the Catholic education and dedication to the Lord.

As the NAZI government of Germany at that time played on the prejudice and racism against the Jewish population, firstly in Germany itself, and then later on, among the countries that they have conquered, gathering all of them to be put into concentration camps and then massacred without mercy, the same would eventually happen to St. Teresa Benedicta, who endured the suffering with grace and faith, believing that God has already planned everything for her, and entrusted everything to God.

We see how mankind could end up committing such cruel acts like murder and genocide, based on their human prejudice alone, when they abandoned God's laws and commandments, and instead putting their trust in their own human judgment and intellect. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross showed all of us how we should then act, against all these prejudices and wickedness, by our total and complete surrender to the Lord and His will.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all as Christians be true disciples of the Lord through our every words, actions and deeds. Let us all put our faith in Him, rather than trusting in our own flawed human power, judgment and prejudices. Let us not follow in the footsteps of the Israelites who disobeyed God because of their fears and prejudices, and then, also, as we remember the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman, let us all never be prejudiced against others or look down on anyone just because we think that we are more faithful than them. After all, no matter what, all of us are still the same, brethren, as sinners still needing the healing and mercy from God.

Let us all therefore from now on, commit ourselves to be righteous and true in our every deeds. Let us all not be passive or be ignorant when others are being bullied because of their race, appearance, or any other things. Let us instead be active in helping one another to reach out to the Lord in faith. May the Lord bless us all, and may He empower us to become ever better disciples of His, always. Amen.

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Wednesday, 9 August 2017 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Matthew 15 : 21-28

At that time, leaving that area, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from the area, came and cried out, "Lord, Son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is tormented by a demon."

But Jesus did not answer her, not even a word. So His disciples approached Him and said, "Send her away! See how she is shouting after us." Then Jesus said to her, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the nation of Israel."

But the woman was already kneeling before Jesus, and said, "Sir, help me!" Jesus answered, "It is not right to take the bread from the children and throw it to puppies."

The woman replied, "That is true, Sir, but even puppies eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table." Then Jesus said, "Woman, how great is your faith! Let it be as you wish." And her daughter was healed at that moment.

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Wednesday, 9 August 2017 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 105 : 6-7a, 13-14, 21-22, 23

We have sinned like our ancestors; we have done wrong and acted wickedly. When they were in Egypt, our ancestors had no regard for Your wondrous deeds.

But soon they forgot His works and did not wait for His counsel. They gave way to wanton craving and tempted God in the desert.

They forgot their Saviour God, Who had done great things in Egypt, wonderful works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Sea of Reeds.

So He spoke of destroying them, but Moses, His chosen one, stood in the breach before Him to shield them from destruction.

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Wednesday, 9 August 2017 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Numbers 13 : 1-2, 25 – Numbers 14 : 1, 26-30, 34-35

YHVH then spoke to Moses, saying, "Send men to explore the land of Canaan that I am giving to the Israelites; send one man from each of the ancestral tribes, all of them leaders."

After forty days of exploration, they returned. They went and met Moses, Aaron and the whole community of Israelites in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They gave an account to them and the whole community and showed them the fruit of this land.

And they said, "We entered the land where you sent us, truly a land flowing with milk and honey and here is the fruit. But how strong are the people who inhabit the land! The cities are fortified with walls and bars, and we even saw there descendants of the Anakites. Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb; Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; the Canaanites are by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan."

Caleb then quieted the people who rose up against Moses and said, "We should go up and take over the land, for we shall surely overcome it." But the men who had gone up with him said, "We cannot advance against these people for they are stronger than we are."

And they spread an unfavourable report about the land that they had explored, saying to the Israelites, "The land we went through to explore is a land that devours its inhabitants and all the people we saw there are men of great size. We even saw giants (these giants were the Anakites). We felt like grasshoppers before them, and to them we must have seemed the same."

Then all the community broke out in loud cries and wept during the night. Then YHVH spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, "How long will this wicked community grumble against Me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel against Me. Say to them : As truly as I live, it is YHVH Who speaks, I will do to you what you have said in My hearing."

"All of you of twenty years and more, numbered in the census, who grumbled against Me, your corpses will fall in the desert. You will not enter the land where I swore to settle you, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh and Joshua, son of Nun. According to the number of days spent in exploring the land – forty days, for every day a year – for forty years you shall bear the guilt of your sins and you shall know what it is to oppose Me."

"I, YHVH, have spoken. Surely this is what I will do to this wicked community that has conspired against Me. In this wilderness they shall be destroyed and this is where they shall die."

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Tuesday, 9 August 2016 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Holy Scriptures speaking to us about what we ought to do in order to be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven and receive fully the blessings and graces of God promised to His faithful ones. And that was made very clear in what we heard in the Gospel today.

In the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus told His disciples, that unless their faith be like those of the little children, they would have no part in the kingdom of heaven promised to them. Unless they welcomed the dear little children in His Name, they would have no part in His glory and inheritance. And if they misled these children into the darkness, their punishment and fate will be even more severe than otherwise.

And at the same time, He also told them of how God is like the loving shepherd who cares for all of his sheep without exception. And when even just one of the hundred sheep was lost, the shepherd went out of his way, doing what he could do best to bring that lost sheep back, so that it would not perish out of the reach of his love. When he found the sheep, he would celebrate and rejoice greatly.

Thus, in the same manner, we are the sheep of the Lord, who are part of the same flock which He has led and guided, through the intermediary of His servants, the prophets and leaders whom He had appointed over all of His people, those who had been sent into the world with the message calling all of mankind to return to the Lord, their one and only true God.

And we are lost in this world, lost in the darkness, lost and being unable to find our way to reach out to the Lord because of the veil of darkness, the veil of confusion, discord and unbelief which Satan and his allies had placed over our eyes, over our senses, over our minds, over our hearts, and over our souls, preventing us from seeing the truth, and remaining blind in the darkness.

And how did they do this? It is by playing and manipulating our fears, our desires and wants, that they have done these so excellently to the extent that many of us became wayward and committed many grievous sins and wicked deeds. We have put ourselves, our ego, our desires and all other obstacles in front of us, preventing ourselves from being able to reach out to the Lord, Who is trying to help us and to pull us out of this darkness, this trap.

And that is why He told His disciples, and thus all of us, that our faith must be like that of those little children who believed in Him wholeheartedly without any reservation. In case we are not aware of it, children are innocent until a certain age when they begin to be formed in their thoughts and moral ideas by those who are around them. And thus, when they believe in the Lord, they truly give it their all and believe in Him.

Are we able to do the same as well? We may not because of our various commitments and all the things that kept us back, held us back from being able to give it all for the Lord our God. And that was where sin came into our hearts and corrupted us, trying to pull us away and sunder us away from the Lord and His love. And in this, perhaps today we should seek to understand and follow what the great saint we celebrate today had done in her own life.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, or much more famously known throughout the world as St. Edith Stein was a Jewish convert to the Christian faith. She was born as an ardent Jewish believer, but grew to believe in the Lord after having read the works of another great saint, the Carmelite saint, St. Teresa of Jesus. She studied her writings thoroughly, and in the process, came to believe in the Lord and gave herself to be baptised into the faith, and eventually, after many years of struggle, joined the religious order of the Carmelites as well.

At that time, as she lived in Germany, where the tide was rising against the Jewish population in the NAZI dominated government of Adolf Hitler, threats and dangers grew more and more vivid every single day on St. Edith Stein and many other Jews living under their tyranny. Even throughout the war, when her life was in constant danger, she continued to write and gave encouragement to the faithful and to the oppressed people of God, never to give up for the Lord Who loves them all would be with them.

To the very end, St. Edith Stein gave it her all to serve the Lord. She gave it all even to the very end, encouraging and strengthening the faith of all those who wavered and those who suffered grievously by persecutions and all the forces applied against the faithful by those who were wicked and evil. She withstood all the challenges, and willingly gave up her life, when she and many others were brutally murdered by the NAZI forces in the concentration camps.

The zeal and courage of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, St. Edith Stein, should be our example and inspiration as well. We should learn to walk in her footsteps, be strong and be courageous in our faith. Let us no longer be hesitant in following the Lord our God, but give it our all to serve Him, rejecting all the worldly temptations and all the lies of Satan that had no value in them.

May God bless us all and strengthen us, and may He, our Good Shepherd, care for us all just as He had cared for His servant, St. Edith Stein, and the many other people throughout the world, throughout the ages, who suffered because of their faith in Him. May God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.

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Tuesday, 9 August 2016 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Matthew 18 : 1-5, 10, 12-14

At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child, set the child in the middle of the disciples, and said, “I assure you that, unless you change and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes lowly like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever receives such a child in My Name receives me.”

“See that you do not despise any of these little ones, for I tell you : their Angels in heaven continually see the face of My heavenly Father. What do you think of this? If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside, and go to look for the stray one?”

“And I tell you : when he finally finds it, he is more pleased about it than about the ninety-nine, that did not get lost. It is the same with your Father in heaven : your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to be lost.”