Tuesday, September 10 : Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross [Edith Stein]

The individual human soul a temple of God – this opens to us an entirely new, broad vista. The prayer life of Jesus was to be the key to understanding the prayer of the church. We saw that Christ took part in the public and prescribed worship services of his people… And this is precisely how he transformed the liturgy of the Old Covenant into that of the New. But Jesus did not merely participate in public and prescribed wor­ship services. Perhaps even more often the Gospels tell of solitary prayer in the still of the night, on open mountain tops, in the wilderness far from people. Jesus’ public ministry was preceded by forty days and forty nights of prayer (Mt 4,1-2). Before he chose and commissioned his twelve apostles, he withdrew into the isolation of the mountains. By his hour on the Mount of Olives, he prepared himself for his road to Golgotha. A few short words tell us what he implored of his Father during this most dif­ficult hour of his life, words that are given to us as guiding stars for our own hours on the Mount of Olives. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine” (Lk 22,42). Like lightning, these words for an instant illumine for us the innermost spiri­tual life of Jesus, the unfathomable mystery of his God-man existence and his dialogue with the Father. Surely, this dialogue was life-long and uninterrupted.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team