Daybreak

Friday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time Optional Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, 1891-1942; a brilliant philosopher who stopped believing in God when she was 14, Edith Stein was so captivated by reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila that she began a spiritual journey that led to her baptism in 1922; twelve years later she imitated Saint Teresa by becoming a Carmelite, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross; the Nazis arrested all Dutch Jews who had become Christians; Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 8/9/24 Gospel: Matthew 16:24-28