Among the themes of these reflections, I have given some priority to learning more about what I call "the saints behind the Saints," the men and women who in some way seem to be instrumental in another person's drawing close to Christ in an exemplary way. An example from an earlier reflection would be the Filicchi family who's example of living the faith and later, their intentionally inviting Elizabeth Ann Seton to consider embracing the Catholic faith, seemed to be significant factors in Elizabeth Ann Seton's becoming Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.

However, how does this whole concept fit in with John 6:44? ("No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him.") To answer that question involves answering another question: How does the Father "draw him or her?" And in answering that question, we have to consider one of the mysteries of our salvation: God calls men and women through other men and women. It is true that God spoke directly to Moses and the prophets, but the rest of the people received his message through Moses and the prophets. And in the age of the Spirit, since Pentecost, the Father sends the Holy Spirit to draw us closer to Jesus, and, in turn, to draw others closer to him.

In the case of the Filicchi family, the Holy Spirit drew them closer to the Lord, and that became evident in the way that they lived their faith in the Lord. St. Teresa of Ávila says that as we get closer to Christ, we inevitably draw others to Christ. First, it was the Filicchi family's living of the faith which impressed Elizabeth Ann Seton, then a further inspiration of the Holy Spirit prompted the Filicchi family to overcome the "Never discuss religion or politics in polite company" rule, and actively invite Elizabeth to consider embracing the Catholic faith.

From the time of her marriage, the Filicchi family had a continuous presence in the life of Elizabeth Ann Seton, and I believe that the Holy Spirit worked through them. However, that is not the Holy Spirit's only modus operandi. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Father to draw someone to the Lord, can use a number of people and circumstances to accomplish that goal.

Through the Holy Spirit, a number of people were inspired to take steps by which the subject of this reflection was drawn to the Lord, including an anonymous woman whom I call the "Church Lady" since all we know about her is that in the midst of her shopping she stopped to visit the Blessed Sacrament in the Frankfurt Cathedral. I chose the term also to emphasize the importance of "Church Ladies" in God's plan to build up the Church

Saturday Night Live's parody of "The Church Lady" colors the perception many have of the women who lead and support so many of the ministries and activities that are fundamental to our parishes. Through the Holy Spirit, the Father has drawn many to Jesus through many "Church Ladies'" prayer and actions. I thank them sincerely for all they are, and all they do.

The subject of this reflection is Edith Stein. She was born in Breslau, Germany on October 12, 1891 of hard-working and observant Jewish parents as her family was celebrating Yom Kippur. Her father, who ran a timber business, died when Edith was two years old, and her mother, as a single-parent, looked after the family, as well as their large business.

At the age of 14, Edith, as she described it, "consciously decided, of my own volition, to give up praying." She became an atheist, feeling no need for God or the Jewish faith her parents had tried to share with her. She was absorbed with her studies, and passed her school-leaving examination with flying colors. She enrolled in the University of Breslau with majors in German and history; however, her real interest was in philosophy and women's issues. Her interest in women's issues continued, but developed. She said: "When I was at school and during my first years at university, I was a radical suffragette. Then I lost interest in the whole issue. Now I am looking for purely pragmatic solutions."

In 1913, Edith transferred to Göttingen University to study under the mentorship of Edmund Husserl. She became his pupil and teaching assistant, and he later tutored her for her doctorate. Husserl's phenomenology unwittingly led many of his pupils to the Christian faith, but not Edith. In Göttingen Edith also met the philosopher Max Scheler, who directed her attention to Roman Catholicism. Edith remained an atheist, but, perhaps, the Holy Spirit, using the philosophies espoused by these men, was beginning to say to Edith, "May I have your attention, please."

Her studies were interrupted in July 1914 because of the outbreak of World War I. She then served as a volunteer wartime Red Cross nurse in an infectious diseases hospital. At the time, she wrote: "I no longer have a life of my own." The hospital was dissolved in 1916, at which time she followed Husserl to the German city of Freiburg where she passed her doctorate summa cum laude in 1917 after writing a thesis on "The Problem of Empathy." Because she was a woman, Husserl did not support her being granted an academic chair at the University of Freiburg.

During this period, while Edith was visiting a friend in Frankfurt, they went into the cathedral as sightseers. This is Edith's recollection of that visit:

We stopped in a the cathedral for a few minutes: and, while we looked around in respectful silence, a woman carrying a market basket came in and knelt down in one of the pews to pray briefly. This was something entirely new to me. To the synagogues or to the Protestant churches which I had visited, one went only for services. But here was someone interrupting her everyday shopping errands to come into this church, although no other person was in it, as though she were here for an intimate conversation. I could never forget that.

The woman I have called the "Church Lady," in the midst of her everyday mundane activities, was inspired to stop in Church for a visit to the Most Blessed Sacrament. In effect, she made a cameo appearance in the life of Edith Stein; however, it was an appearance which had a profound effect on Edith. In my mind, the inspiration to make that visit is clearly the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father to draw Edith closer to Christ.

In reflecting on the incident itself, it is important to note both that the woman followed-up on the inspiration, and that she never knew the effect that it had on Edith. Do we follow-up on inspirations that we receive? Do we believe that if we do the "right thing," good things will happen that we may never know about? And, do we "look around" our world — as Edith looked around the cathedral — open to the fact that the Holy Spirit may have inspired someone to do or say something intended to draw us closer to Christ?

During her time at Göttingen University Edith studied under Husserl; however, Husserl had a distant and aloof personality, and Edith became closer academically and socially with another of Husserl's assistants, Adolf Reinach. As a matter of fact, Edith in short order became close friends with both Reinach and his wife, Anna, and as one of the few women pursuing high studies in those days, her friendship with Anna, who held a Ph.D. in Physics, seems to have been particularly valuable.

Adolf Reinach died in November, 1917 during a World War I campaign in Flanders. His death affected Edith terribly; in a letter she wrote in the days after his funeral she said that those days "left me incapable of happiness." In the months after the funeral, she visited Anna.

Both Adolf and Anna were raised in the Jewish faith, but before Adolf's death, both Adoph and Anna were baptized as Lutheran Christians. And when Edith visited Anna, thinking to console her, she came to witness Anna's faith and found that she was the one being consoled. As she later put it:

This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it . . . it was the moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me — Christ in the mystery of the Cross.

Anna Reinach was another of the Father's instruments, inspired by the Holy Spirit to live the Christian faith in such a way as to draw Edith Stein closer to the Lord.

In Autumn 1918 Edith Stein gave up her job as Husserl's teaching assistant. She wanted to work independently. Actually, she wanted to obtain a professorship, a goal that was impossible for a woman at the time. Later, she was refused a professorship on account of her Jewishness. Back in Breslau, Edith began to write articles about the philosophical foundation of psychology. However, she also read the New Testament, Kierkegaard and Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. She felt that one could not just read a book like that, but had to put it into practice.

In the summer of 1921. she spent several weeks in Bergzabern on the country estate of Hedwig Conrad-Martius, another pupil of Husserl's. Hedwig had converted to Protestantism with her husband. One evening Edith picked up an autobiography of St. Teresa of Ávila and read the book all night. "When I had finished the book, I said to myself: This is the truth."

After a few weeks of reading and praying, Edith approached the local priest and asked that she be received into the Church. The priest balked because this all seemed so new for her. She simply said, "Test me." She was baptized on January 1, 1922.

Immediately after her conversion she wanted to join a Carmelite convent. However, her spiritual mentors stopped her from doing so. Until Easter 1931 she held a position teaching German and history at the Dominican Sisters' school and teacher training college of St. Magdalen's Convent in Speyer. At the same time she was encouraged by Arch-Abbot Raphael Walzer of Beuron Abbey to accept extensive speaking engagements, mainly on women's issues. She reflected:

During the time immediately before and quite some time after my conversion I . . . thought that leading a religious life meant giving up all earthly things and having one's mind fixed on divine things only. Gradually, however, I learnt that other things are expected of us in this world . . . I even believe that the deeper someone is drawn to God, the more he has to `get beyond himself' in this sense, that is, go into the world and carry divine life into it.

In 1931 Edith left the convent school in Speyer and devoted herself to working for a professorship again, this time in Breslau and Freiburg, though her endeavors were in vain. In 1932 she accepted a lectureship position at the Roman Catholic division of the German Institute for Educational Studies at the University of Munster, where she developed her anthropology. She successfully combined scholarship and faith in her work and her teaching, seeking to be a "tool of the Lord" in everything she taught

In 1933 darkness broke out over Germany. "I had heard of severe measures against Jews before. But now it dawned on me that God had laid his hand heavily on His people, and that the destiny of these people would also be mine." The Aryan Law of the Nazis made it impossible for Edith to continue teaching. "If I can't go on here, then there are no longer any opportunities for me in Germany," she wrote.

The Arch-Abbot of Beuron, Walzer, now no longer stopped her from entering a Carmelite convent. While in Speyer, she had already taken a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. In 1933 she met with the prioress of the Carmelite Convent in Cologne. "Human activities cannot help us, but only the suffering of Christ. It is my desire to share in it."

Edith joined the Carmelite Convent of Cologne on October 14, 1933, and her investiture took place on April 14, 1934. The Mass was celebrated by the Arch-Abbot of Beuron. Edith Stein was now known as Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. In 1938 she wrote:

I understood the cross as the destiny of God's people, which was beginning to be apparent at the time (1933). I felt that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody's behalf. Of course, I know better now what it means to be wedded to the Lord in the sign of the cross. However, one can never comprehend it, because it is a mystery.

During this time as a Carmelite, Edith's wise Prioress allowed her to use her intellectual gifts and continue with her philosophical writings. It was in Carmel that Edith wrote her masterpiece, Finite and Eternal Being. However, one does not escape from the world in a cloistered convent or monastery. On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently incorporated territories. This event came to be called Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) because of the shattered glass that littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes. For Edith's safety, and the safety of the Cologne Carmelite convent, on December 31, 1938, Edith was moved secretly to the Carmelite convent in Echt, Holland. Later, that same convent welcomed Edith's sister, Rosa, who had converted to Catholicism and become a lay Carmelite; Rosa lived and worked in the convent as an extern.

In May 1940, Holland was invaded by the Nazis, who soon placed it under German control and began anti-Jewish measures. In 1941 the Nazis started deporting Dutch Jews to the Mautausen-Gusen concentration camp. For a brief period in the Echt convent, Edith was able to continue her work, completing her study of Saint John of the Cross, The Science of the Cross.

On July 26, 1942, the Dutch Bishops promulgated a pastoral letter which condemned the deportation of the Jews. In retaliation, on August 2, 1942, the Nazis rounded up 245 Catholics of Jewish descent. Edith Stein was arrested by the Gestapo while she was in the chapel with the other sisters. She was to report within five minutes, together with her sister, Rosa. Her last words to be heard in Echt were addressed to Rosa: "Come, we are going to our people". She and Rosa were with most of the women and children rounded up by the Gestapo as they were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau where they died in the gas chamber soon after their arrival on August 9, 1942. Eyewitness accounts of Edith in the transit camps describe her as calm and composed, practical, compassionate, a peaceful influence on all around her.

Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was beatified in 1987 by Pope St John Paul II in Cologne, and canonized by him in Rome in 1998. The following year, she was declared a co-patron of Europe, along with St Bridget of Sweden and St Catherine of Siena.

Through the action of the Holy Spirit, the Father drew Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross to the Lord. And it seems that the "Church Lady," Anna Reinach and St. Teresa of Ávila had major parts to play in the process.

I have a theory that none of us will learn about the really important things we have done in life until the Lord reveals them to us in the kingdom. That is when, I believe, the "Church Lady" will learn of her role in the life of Edith Stein.