St Edith Stein Quotes

In the words of Pope John Paul II at the canonization of St. Edith Stein—a Catholic Carmelite nun who died in Auschwitz because of her Catholic faith and her Jewish descent—“Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive lie.

The entirely comfortable being-at-home in the world, the satiety of pleasures that it offers, the demand for these pleasures and the matter-of-course consent to these demands—all of this that human nature considers bright daily life—all of this is darkness5 in God’s eyes and incompatible with the divine light. It has to be totally uprooted if room for God is to be made in the soul. Meeting this demand means engaging in battle with one’s own nature all along the line, taking up one’s cross and delivering oneself up to be crucified. Holy Father St. John here invokes the Lord’s saying in this connection: “Whoever does not renounce all that the will possesses cannot be my disciple” [Lk.

By the cross I understood the destiny of God’s people.… I thought that those who recognized it as the cross of Christ had to take it upon themselves in the name of all….