On this Good Friday, I’ll leave it to the story of Edith Stein (1891-1942), a German philosopher who grew up in Judaism before converting to Christianity in the 1920s, to speak for the day. On a trip to Cologne during Holy Week in 1933, Stein attended a Maundy Thursday service at a Carmelite convent with a friend. Afterwards, recalling how deeply she had been moved by the priest’s homily during the service, and fully aware of the political goings on in the rise of Nazism during that time, she wrote:

“I told our Lord that I knew it was His cross that was now being placed upon the Jewish people; that most of them did not understand this, but that those who did would have to take it up willingly in the name of all. I would do that. At the end of the service, I was certain that I had been heard. But what this carrying of the cross was to consist in, that I did not yet know.

The following year, Edith Stein entered the Carmelite order and took the name of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. It is amazing to know that, even as a Roman Catholic nun, she was forced to wear a yellow Star of David on her habit. Fearing for her safety, her convent transferred her to Echt, in Holland, but it was to no avail. Stein was arrested by the Nazis in August of 1942 and executed at Auschwitz shortly thereafter.

For her oft-expressed willingness to offer herself as a sacrifice for Christ on behalf of her people, her service in promoting understanding between Christians and Jews, her martyrdom, and certain miracles that have been attributed to her (including, BTW, a highly-publicized one that took place in Massachusetts back in 1987), she was beatified as a saint of the Catholic faith by Pope John Paul II on May 1,1987.

Edith Stein is a living example of how, if one is to take up the Cross of Christ, it must be done unflinchingly and half-hearted, all the way, and wherever it may lead.