The Christian Heritage Centre is delighted to announce this two-day retreat offering a weekend exploring the life and teachings of Edith Stein, or St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, and her indominatable search for truth that led her to the Catholic faith.
Led by Fr Matthew Blake, OCD.
This retreat explores the life and faith of St Edith Stein (also called Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), a convert from Judaism who was executed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Born into a large Jewish family in Poland in 1891, she rejected God as a teenager, but her brilliant mind and her turn to philosophy eventually led her to recognise the truth through a reading of the life of St Teresa of Avila.
From there, she gravitated to the works of St Thomas Aquinas to further her new-found knowledge, continuing her life-long quest for meaning and truth in the light of her baptism and reception into the Church in 1922.
Edith joined the Carmelite monastery in Cologne when her teaching mission to Catholic women was blocked by the Nazis on the grounds of her Jewish heritage. She was moved for her own safety to the Carmel in Echt, Holland, but was rounded up with other Jewish converts to Catholicism by the Nazis, and taken to Auschwitz for execution in 1942.
Retreat structure:
This retreat will offer several talks over the weekend, framed by opportunities for Mass, communal prayer in the morning and evening, and Adoration. Free time for walks and reflection is built into each retreat.
Further information and registration are available here.