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Edith Stein was born on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement (12 October, 1891), in Breslau, Silesia, (now Wroclaw, Poland).  She was the youngest of 11 children in a devout Jewish family.  When she was not yet two years old her father died suddenly, leaving Edith’s mother to raise the seven remaining children (four had died in childhood) and to manage the family business. Brought up on the Psalms and Proverbs, Edith considered her mother a living example of the strong woman of Proverbs 31. However, by her teenage years, Stein had lost her Jewish faith and regarded herself an atheist, although she continued to respect her mother’s total openness to God.

One of the first women to do university studies in Germany, Edith moved from the University of Breslau to the University of Gottingen in order to study under Edmund Husserl, the founder of the philosophical study of phenomenology. It was her study of philosophy which led her to acknowledge the existence of a transcendent reality. Under the influence of friends who had discovered Christianity, her atheism began to falter.

During the summer of 1921 at the age of 29 and while on holidays with friends, she found herself alone one evening.  Apparently by chance, she happened on the autobiography of St Teresa of Avila, the founder of the reformed Carmelites, and read it in one sitting. The effect of the book was to convince her that truth was with Christianity and the next day she went out to buy a missal and a catechism.

She was baptized on 1 January, 1922 and gave up her assistantship with Husserl to teach at a Dominican girls’ school in Speyer from 1922 to 1932.  Her spiritual directors knew that her conversion to Christianity and her seclusion in a contemplative order would be a double blow to her devout Jewish mother.  At the same time, they knew the Church could benefit from her ability as a writer and speaker, which would be excluded within the walls of an enclosed convent. In fact, she did become a significant voice in the Catholic Woman’s Movement in Germany. When Hitler rose to power in 1933, Edith was already well known in German academic circles.

With the growing persecution of the Jewish community, she wrote a letter to Pope Pius XI denouncing the Nazi regime and asked the Pope openly to condemn the regime, “to put a stop to this abuse of Christ’s name”.  However, for reasons that are unknown, a response to her request did not materialise.

By March of 1933, her colleagues at the Educational Institute in Muenster, aware that they could no longer protect her, offered her a teaching position in South America.  However, if she accepted, she would not see her 84-year-old mother again, so she felt it was now time for her to enter the convent. In that same year, she was deeply moved by a homily she heard during a Holy Thursday service at the Carmelite convent in Cologne. She decided that as someone who understood that a cross was being placed on the Jewish people, she wanted to take it up in their name.  But she did not yet know what carrying the cross would entail.

So, on 15 October, the feast of St Teresa of Avila and just after her 42nd birthday, Edith entered the Carmel of Cologne and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.  Her family, and especially her mother, felt it was a betrayal of her people just at a time when persecution of the Jews was being intensified by what they regarded as Christian oppressors (although Nazism was atheistic). They wondered how she could do such a thing, how she could believe in a man who could call himself God. Yet, after the mother’s death in 1936, Edith’s sister Rosa also became a Catholic.

Edith stayed in Cologne for five years, happy in her vocation and still engaged in her scholarly studies. However, after the terrible Kristallnacht of 9 November, 1938, there were fears for Edith’s safety and she was sent secretly to a Carmelite convent in Echt in The Netherlands. Her converted sister Rosa joined her there as a Third Order Carmelite, serving as the convent portress. When Holland was overrun by the Nazis, there was a plan to move the two sisters to Switzerland. However, before this could be done, a strongly worded encyclical from the Dutch bishops on 20 July, 1942 against anti-Semitism resulted in all convert Jews being arrested to be sent to the death camps.

Edith and Rosa Stein were arrested on 2 August, 1942. As they were led away, Edith said to her sister:

Come, Rosa…We go for our people.

The sisters were brought to Auschwitz and died in the gas chambers only a week later. Edith Stein was just 50 years old. During those final days, Edith showed great inner strength and gave encouragement to her fellow prisoners and even helped look after small children when their mothers were too distressed to do so. One woman who survived the war wrote:

Every time I think of her sitting in the barracks, the same picture comes to mind: a Pieta without the Christ.

Like her Master, she died with him and, like him, she died for her people and for their persecutors. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 1 May, 1987 and canonised as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (her Carmelite given name) on 11 October, 1998.  She is also one of the five Patrons of Europe.

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Peter Faber (Pierre Favre) was born in 1506 in Villaret, Savoy in the south of France. As a boy, he looked after his father’s sheep in the French Alps. While tending sheep during the week, he taught cathechism to children on Sundays. Aware of his call to be a priest, he longed to study. At first, he was entrusted to the care of a priest at Thones and later to a neighbouring school at La Roche-sur-Foron. With the consent of his parents, in 1525 he went to the University of Paris.  It was here that he discovered his real vocation. He was admitted to the College of Sainte-Barbe where he shared lodgings with a student from Navarre named Francis Xavier.  They became close friends and graduated on the same day in 1530 with a master of arts degree.  Peter also met Ignatius Loyola at the university, and both Peter and Francis came under his influence. While Peter taught Ignatius the philosophy of Aristotle, Ignatius directed him in the spiritual life.

Peter was ordained priest in 1534, the first priest in Ignatius’ group, and was celebrant of the Mass on 15 August of the same year at which Ignatius and his companions made their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, with the intention of going to the Holy Land.  Soon three more became members of the group. After Ignatius, Peter Faber was the one for whom the companions had the deepest respect because of his knowledge, his holiness and his influence on people.

Leaving Paris on 15 November, 1536, Peter and the companions met up with Ignatius in Venice in January 1537.  They planned to evanglise in the Holy Land, but the instability of the region made it impossible.  So they now decided to form a religious congregation and went to Rome, where the Society of Jesus was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. After some time preaching and teaching in Rome, the pope sent Peter to Parma and Piacenza in Italy, where he preached the Gospel with success.   He was then sent to Germany to defend the Catholic faith against the Reformers at the Diet of Worms in 1540. From Worms, Peter was called to another Diet at Ratisbon in the following year.  He was disturbed by the unrest caused by Protestantism, but even more by the decadence of Catholic life.  He saw that what was needed was not discussion with the Protestants, but the reform of the Catholic Church, in particular, the clergy.  He spent a successful 10 months at Speyer, Ratisbon and Mainz.  He influenced princes, prelates, and priests who opened themselves to him and amazed people by the effectiveness of his outreach.

Recalled to Spain by Ignatius, Faber left the field where he had been so successful, and on his way won over his native region of Savoy, which never ceased to venerate him as a saint. He had hardly been in Spain six months when the pope ordered him back to Germany. He spent the next 19 months working for reform in Speyer, Mainz, and Cologne.  Gradually he won over the clergy and discovered many vocations among the young.  Among these was a young Dutchman, Peter Canisius who, as a Jesuit, would earn the title of Apostle of Germany.  After spending some time in Leuven (Louvain) in 1543, he was called in the following year to go to Portugal and then to Spain.  He was instrumental in establishing the Jesuits in Portugal.

He was called to the principal cities of Spain, where he did much good.  Among the vocations he nurtured was that of Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, who, following the death of his wife, would become a Jesuit and later the third General of the Jesuits. Faber, still only 40 years old, was now worn out by his constant labours and long journeys, always made on foot. Pope Paul III wanted to send him to the coming Council of Trent as theologian of the Holy See, and King John III of Portugal wanted to make him Patriarch of Ethiopia.  However, he only got as far as Rome on his way to the Council.  Suffering from a fever after his journey, he died in the arms of Ignatius in Rome on 1 August, 1546. Peter Faber was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1872. He is remembered for his travels through Europe promoting Catholic renewal and his great skill in directing the Spiritual Exercises.

On 17 December, 2013, Pope Francis issued a decree declaring Peter Faber a saint. The decree was an “equivalent canonisation”. This means the pope added the name of Peter Faber to the universal calendar of saints without needing proof of a miracle performed through his intercession or without holding a formal canonisation ceremony.

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Commentary on Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 44:1,10-15; Matthew 13:16-17

The memorial’s very short Gospel reading is taken from Matthew.  It is in the chapter containing the parables of the Kingdom.  After having spoken of the reasons why he taught in parables, Jesus told his disciples how privileged they were:

…blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

The disciples of Jesus, of course, were especially privileged to spend their days in the company of the Son of God and to hear his Word directly from his mouth.  It was probably only later, when this Gospel came to be written, that they realised just how privileged they really were. And, of course, even though it is more than 2,000 years later, we too are so privileged to hear the same words as the guide to our life.  And we might ask, why us?  Why not other people?  But of course question should be: how are we responding to this message, and how is it being lived out in our daily lives?  And to what extent are we sharing it with those who have never heard it? Today’s Gospel, of course, is directed at Joachim and Anne who had the privilege of being the parents of Mary, the Mother of God.

The First Reading from the Book of Sirach is from a passage which is in praise of Israel’s great ancestors. Some of the words apply very appropriately to Mary’s parents:

Their descendants stand by the covenants;
their children also, for their sake.
Their offspring will continue forever,
and their glory will never be blotted out.

And there are words that apply in our context to Jesus:

Their bodies are buried in peace,
but their name lives on generation after generation.

And indeed, so many centuries later, the parents of Mary are still remembered and honoured. It is a day for all of us remember with respect our own parents and to pray for all who are parents now.

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Scripture tells us absolutely nothing about Mary’s family.  All that we have is really legend. It comes mainly from a second century writing called the Proto-Gospel (Protevangelium) of James.  We need to realize that in the early Church it took some time before the books, which now form part of our New Testament, were finally chosen.  There were many other ‘pseudo-gospels’, which in the end, were not accepted as genuine.  One of the more respected of these was the Proto-Gospel of James.  It is possible that it does contain some genuine traditions about Mary, although this would be difficult to prove.

Out of devotion to Mary, some people were saying that she had been conceived by divine intervention like Jesus.  But by asserting that she had two human parents, whom we know as Joachim and Anne, it is asserted that she was born in the normal way, like every other human person. They are both regarded as the parents of Mary and true grandparents of Jesus.

According to the legend, their names were Joachim and Anne. It is said they were rich and pious people of Nazareth. Like a number of the characters in the Old Testament, and Elizabeth in the New Testament, they were said to be childless in a society where this was considered a social stigma.  So Joachim withdrew to the desert to pray while Anne remained in the home, praying for a child whom she would devote to the service of God. Their prayer was heard; Joachim returned to his wife and they conceived a girl whom they named Mary.

It was natural in the Church for devotion to be directed to the parents of such a special daughter.  And because, unlike the situation of Mary and Joseph, they had produced a child in the perfectly normal way, they were more easily identified with by other parents. Devotion to St Anne in the Eastern church dates from at least the 4th century. In the West, there was devotion to her as early as the 8th century, but she was honoured by a feast day, July 26, only after the 13th century. Devotion to St Joachim did not really develop until the 15th century. He was only assigned a feast day, 16 September, in 1913. Following the Second Vatican Council, their feasts were combined and are now celebrated together.

At Auray in Brittany, France, there was a very popular shrine to St Anne in the early middle ages. In North America, there is a popular shrine to St Anne in Beaupre, about 30 km from the city of Quebec. It was on 13 March, 1658 that French immigrants erected the first chapel there in her honour.  Among the Catholics of India, too, there is great devotion to St Anne. Although devotion to Joachim is not as popular, devotion to both of them is seen as showing respect for the family.

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Commentary on Wisdom 12:13,16-19; Romans 8:26-27; Matthew 13:24-43

Today sees a continuation of last Sunday’s Gospel reading from chapter 13 of Matthew on the parables of the Kingdom. Matthew in these parables speaks consistently of the “kingdom of heaven” and it could be, for some people, a misleading phrase because it seems to refer to the after-life, an other-world future existence.

In fact, as has been mentioned in a number of previous commentaries, Jesus and the Gospel are speaking very emphatically about the world in which are living now. The Kingdom represents the kind of world that God, through Jesus, wants to see realised among us here on earth. We pray for it daily in the Lord’s Prayer:

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…

And it will only come about in so far as we co-operate and work together with Jesus, here and now.

Why, then, does Matthew speak of the “kingdom of heaven”? We need to remember that this Gospel is written mainly for a Jewish readership. Out of respect, the Jews did not like to use the name of God directly. “Heaven” then is a euphemism for “God”. And Matthew uses other devices to avoid mentioning God’s name directly. For example he says:

…whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven [i.e. by God]…(Matt 16:19)

and

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy [i.e. from God]. (Matt 5:7)

Mark, on the other hand, writing for a different readership, has no problems speaking about the “kingdom of God”.

Nature of the ‘Kingdom’
“Kingdom” in the Gospel does not refer to a place, either here or hereafter. The Greek word, basileia, better translated as ‘kingship’, or ‘reign’, or ‘rule’, so some translations speak of the ‘Reign of God’. The Kingdom is primarily an environment, it is a set of relationships, it is a situation where God’s values prevail. And what are God’s values? In practice, they are the deepest human values and aspirations as mirrored in the life of Jesus, who is himself the revelation of God to us in accessible human form. These values include truth, love, compassion, justice, a sense of solidarity with all other human beings, a sense of trust in other, a deep respect for the dignity of every other human person and a holistic concept of human growth and development. And of course, all these are seen in the light of God, who is their Ultimate Source. It is to be like him and with him that we live according to these values. They, with and through Jesus, are our link with Him.

People who, individually and collectively, try to live these values belong, with Jesus, to the Kingdom of God. They are united with the rule of God in trying to build a world we would all like to see happen. It is very much something for the here and now. It is basically the vocation of the Church, and therefore the vocation of every parish community and of every member of that community. At the same time, we need to recognise that the Kingdom and the Church are not co-terminous (see the parable below). The Kingdom extends beyond the Church. There certainly are people, who may not explicitly know Christ or express allegiance to Christ, who yet live the ideals and the values of the Kingdom in their lives. Individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi or the Dalai Lama are examples from the recent past. On the other hand, we cannot say we belong to the Kingdom simply because we are baptised Church members, but only in so far as the vision of the Kingdom is an effective factor of our daily living.

Weeds and wheat
In today’s Gospel reading we have three images or parables of the Kingdom at work among us. The first is the parable of the weeds among the wheat. The Kingdom of God clearly calls for people of the highest ideals and great generosity. It also calls for a great measure of tolerance, patience and understanding in seeing the Kingdom become a reality. The conversion of our societies into Kingdom-like communities is a very gradual process. There is always the danger that, when people try to take God or the good life seriously, they become elitist. We Christians, simply as Christians, can feel superior to people of other religions or none. As Catholics we can talk disparagingly of Anglicans, Protestants, Evangelicals. And even among Catholics, members of charismatic groups, Legionaries, Bible study groups and social action groups can see themselves as ‘superior’ to ‘ordinary’ Catholics who ‘only’ go to Mass on Sundays. And the Sunday Mass-goers are a cut above those who only appear at the Christmas midnight Mass or on Easter.

And in general, we ‘decently moral people’ are ahead of the ‘thugs’, ‘louts’ and other ‘undesirables’ in our society. ‘Thugs’ and ‘louts’ may be descriptive, but they are also words of intolerance. We sanctimoniously set ourselves up as judges of others. It is a trend which is increasingly being found in our daily media, and they presumably reflect the interests and values of readers and viewers (among whom one can, alas, find ‘good’ Catholics).

Living side by side
Hence, today’s parable far from being remote, touches on deep areas in the lives of all of us. The parable is saying that people who are filled with the vision and values of God and Jesus must learn to live side by side with a whole spectrum of people who, in varying degrees, do not yet share or live this vision and these values. This applies to differences between Christians and non-Christians, but also within Christian communities themselves. We are—and always will be—a sinful Church. To pretend that we are anything else is a lie. It is not the healthy who need the physician Jesus, but rather the sinners and tax collectors—you and me.

We can go even further. Each one of us is a combination of wheat and weeds. In each one of us there are elements of the Kingdom and elements that are deeply opposed to it. Paul recognised that struggle within himself (see Romans 7:21-25). So we need to learn how to be tolerant with our own weaknesses. God told Paul that it was precisely through his weaknesses that he could reveal his glory:

My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is made perfect in [your] weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

The coming of the Kingdom then is not going to be a neat and tidy process. And experience again and again confirms that fact whenever we try to bring out change and reforms in any community.

Small beginnings
The next two parables point to two other characteristics of the Kingdom. The parable of the mustard seed shows that the work of the Kingdom has tiny beginnings, whether we are talking of the fledgling Church which Christ established or any newly established Kingdom-inspired movement today. And wherever the vision of the Kingdom becomes truly rooted, it will experience certain and inevitable growth.

Why? Because the vision of the Kingdom is not a narrow, religious one, but an expression of the deepest aspirations of all human beings. At its beginnings the Church, as the instrument for the building of the Kingdom, must have felt it faced a daunting task. Its tiny communities were scattered all over Asia Minor, Greece and Italy. Waves of persecution and hostility followed each other in a determined effort to wipe them out. But they prevailed as Truth, Love and Justice must in the end always prevail. Even so, the “weeds” of opposition will always be present.

An element of growth
In the third parable, the Kingdom is compared to a small amount of yeast in a large batch of dough. Its presence cannot be easily detected—for it is totally blended with and part of its environment—as a good Kingdom community should be. At the same time, it has an energy of its own which produces a remarkable influence of growth in the whole. Perhaps part of our Christian problem is that we are too exclusively concerned with the growth (or even the survival) of the Church in general, or of our little corner of the Church, and not sufficiently with the growth and well-being of the whole community to which we belong.

God’s Kingship in the here and now
To sum up, each of the three parables is saying something specific about the development of God’s Kingdom among us:

• It is going to be, on the whole, a messy business in which the good and bad, the strong and the weak and the clean and the corrupt will rub shoulder to shoulder both inside the Church and its communities and outside it. To try to create islands of absolute integrity is not realistic and is even self-defeating.
• No matter how small the beginnings, if we are faithful to the spirit and values of the Kingdom, we can be sure that apparently difficult obstacles, threats and even dangers can be overcome.
• A Kingdom-community, even though very small, can exert a real influence on the growth of the environment of which it is fully a part and be instrumental in spreading Kingdom values as the accepted values.

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Information on the life of Irenaeus is sparse, and what is known may be inexact. Irenaeus was born in Proconsular Asia or in one of the bordering provinces in the first half of the 2nd century—about 100 years after the death of Christ. The exact date is disputed. We do know that, while he was still young, he had seen and heard the famous bishop, St Polycarp at Smyrna. Polycarp died in 155 AD and was in direct touch with some of those who knew Jesus.

During the persecution of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Irenaeus was a priest of the Church of Lyons in Gaul. The church leaders of that city, many of whom were suffering imprisonment for their Christian faith, sent him in 177 or 178 AD to Rome with a letter to Pope Eleutherius concerning Montanism and giving testimony to Irenaeus’ good qualities.

Montanism, called after its founder Montanus, was a widespread heresy of the 2nd century AD. It was a kind of extreme Pentecostalism. Montanists believed, for instance, that their prophecies replaced the teachings of the Apostles and that God spoke in and through them. They encouraged ecstatic prophesying, and claimed those who sinned could not be saved. They emphasized chastity and forbade remarriage. For them, Easter had to be celebrated on 14 Nisan, irrespective of the day of the week.

Returning to Gaul from Rome, Irenaeus succeeded the martyr St Pothinus as Bishop of Lyons. During the peace which followed the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, the new bishop was both pastor and missionary. His writings were mostly directed against Gnosticism, another widespread and troublesome heresy in the early Church. It was deeply philosophical, anti-material and influenced by the thinking of Plato. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives the following brief definition:

“A collective name for a large number of greatly-varying and pantheistic-idealistic sects, which flourished from some time before the Christian Era down to the fifth century, and which, while borrowing the phraseology and some of the tenets of the chief religions of the day, and especially of Christianity, held matter to be a deterioration of spirit, and the whole universe a depravation of the Deity, and taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the “Parent-Spirit”, which return they held to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of some God-sent Saviour.”

We do not know when Irenaeus died, but it must have been at the end of the 2nd century or the beginning of the 3rd. In spite of accounts to that effect, it is not certain that he died a martyr’s death. His feast is celebrated on 28 June in the Latin Church, and on 23 August in the Greek.

Irenaeus is remembered for the many works he wrote in Greek and which have earned him a special place in Christian literature. As one who had been in contact with Polycarp, who himself had been in direct contact with the Apostolic Church, Irenaeus’ testimony, especially in disputed matters, is of special value.

None of his writings has come down to us in the original text. We have them through citations by later writers including Hippolytus and Eusebius. Two of his complete works, however, have come down to us in translation. The first of these, in Latin, is Adversus haereses (Against heresies), which is mainly a refutation of Gnosticism and some other current heresies. It is regarded as a very important source of information on the thinking of the Church at the time. Some of the most important passages are on the origin of the Gospel of John, the Eucharist and the primacy of the Roman Church. The second work, which we have in an Armenian translation, is more a positive presentation of the Christian faith rather than a polemic. Of his other works only scattered fragments exist; many, indeed, are known only through the mention made of them by later writers, not even fragments of the works themselves having come down to us.

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Saint Joseph de Anchieta – Commentary on the day’s Scripture readings Read Saint Joseph de Anchieta – Readings »

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Homily delivered by Mark Raper SJ on 22 March 2011 at a mass celebrating the life of Francis George Doyle SJ  (4 October 1931 – 17 March 2011) in Saint Ignatius Oratory, Loyola House of Studies, Manila.

Readings: Romans 8:18-29;  Response Ps 23; Matthew 11:25–30

Read Come to me – Funeral homily for Frank Doyle SJ »

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Commentary on Jeremiah 7:23-28

The theme of today’s readings is expressed in the final line of the Gospel:

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. (Luke 11:23)

Jeremiah makes strong statements about how God’s people do not listen to his words. The covenant was:

Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.

But that is not what has happened, says Jeremiah, in spite of so many messengers and prophets sent to speak to the people:

Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels and looked backward rather than forward.

As the Gospel of today indicates in Jesus’ confrontation with some Pharisees, when people do not want to believe, there is nothing that will change their minds. They will refuse to acknowledge goodness staring them in the face.

We are not here to sit in judgement on our predecessors. Readings like this are intended to help us take a closer look at ourselves. What we need to do is to ask how these words of Jeremiah apply to us. How carefully do we listen? How well do we carry out the will of God in our lives? How clearly can we discern the presence of God in our daily situations? What kind of influence or force are we in our communities? Are we a force for greater unity or for division?