"I go for my people"

These words are said to have been spoken by St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross OCD (Edith Stein) as she was forcibly removed from the monastery of Echt in Holland to be taken to her death at Auschwitz on this day (her feast day) in 1942. She was referring of course to the Jewish people.

People often forget that Teresa's sister Rosa was with her. Rosa had also become a Catholic, but she had remained with her mother to care for her until her mother died. Rosa sacrificed her own life to care for her mother, and this is the quiet heroism of the unsung saints. I had a friend called Desmond some years ago who was briefly an Anglican cleric in London. He then became a Catholic and was sent to Rome to train for the priesthood. Both his parents then died, but they had been looking after Desmond's Downs Syndrome brother. Desmond gave up his preparation for the priesthood and came home to look after his brother, which he did until the end of his own life a while ago. That's what I call a quiet martyrdom. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Intercessions: D, who suffers from chronic pain that is apparently untreatable.