Title Varies Slightly

Via Sandro Magister, rabbi Jacob Neusner (whose book A Rabbi Talks to Jesus was acclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI), and bishop Gianfranco Ravas discuss the revised Good Friday prayer in the Missal of Blessed John XXIII.
If you’ve read some of the recent US press discussion on this topic, which has a “how dare you!” tone [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
On Sunday, August 9, 1942, Edith Stein died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and entered into eternal life with God.
Rather than my own prayers today, I give you the English translation of the mourner’s Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead:
Magnified and sanctified [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
Today, we remember her arrival at Auschwitz, the place of her death.
The prayer below is my own:
St. Edith, you arrived at Auschwitz and were counted among the worthless, but you maintained your dignity. Join your prayers to ours, that we might  remember that we, [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
In today’s meditation, we read this interesting passage:
At Scifferstadt, however, a door might have been opened for a few moments, during which time, our Edith managed to recognize an ex-pupil standing on the platform and to convey to her greetings for her Sisters. “Tell [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
Today we commemorate the day St. Edith and her fellow captives spent at Westerbork camp, being plundered of any goods of value they still owned, given identification numbers, and generally being processed as prisoners.
The prayer below is my own:
St. Edith,  the petty bureaucracies and [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
On this day we remember St. Edith’s travel to yet another transitional camp. She and the other prisoners are forced to travel in complete darkness, without knowledge of their destination, knowing only that they will ultimately be killed. Near the end of their [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
Today we read this remarkable account of how the clergy and religious imprisoned at Amersfoort turned their prison into a place of prayer:
The religious grouped themselves spontaneously into a little community which regarded Saint Edith as its Superior, so unquestionable was the ascendancy [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
Today we recall the journey of Edith and her sister Rosa from Echt, throughout the Netherlands, to Amersfoort, where the Nazis had a transit camp. Because of the convoluted route taken (in order to round up more prisoners, the trip lasted until the [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation.
Some people had a problem with St. Edith’s canonization as a “virgin and martyr,” because she was murdered in Auschwitz. They see her as a Jewish holocaust victim, not a Catholic martyr. Today’s meditation explains more fully why the designation as a virgin and [...]

Courtesy of the Association of Hebrew Catholics, today’s novena prayers and meditation. The prayer below is my own:
St. Edith, you received grace from God to understand how your sufferings could be made part of His greater plan. Add your prayers to ours, that God might give us strength and wisdom to unite even our small [...]