August 9 2022

On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband’, and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal’. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.

Hosea 2:16,17,21-22, NRSV

Like many of the prophets, Hosea did not have an easy life. In his case, he suffered much sadness because of his wife’s repeated infidelity. Rather than following the customs of his time, Hosea continued to love and care for his wife and to try and win her back. Hosea used this experience when writing about God’s love for his unfaithful people. In some beautifully poetic images, Hosea compared God’s continual love for the people of Israel to that of a loving husband. In today’s reading, Hosea looks back with fondness to the forty years in the desert after the Exodus as a “honeymoon” period during which God and Israel grew in their relationship. This steadfast love of God was experienced by Edith Stein, one of the six co-patrons of Europe, whose feast is celebrated today. Edith was born in Germany and grew up in an observant Jewish family. After a period of agnosticism in her youth, she converted to Catholicism and later became a Carmelite nun. For her own safety, she was moved to a convent in the Netherlands at the time of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. After a public condemnation of the Nazis by the Catholic Church, reprisals included the arrest of all Jewish converts who had previously been spared. Edith was offered help to escape but refused this. She had been prepared for some time to be taken to a Concentration Camp and wanted to share in the fate of those she saw as her brothers and sisters. Stories are told of the many ways in which she tried to help her fellow travellers to Auschwitz and of how she cared for children whose parents were no longer able to. Edith died in the gas chambers along with her sister and many others and is remembered for the sacrificial love she shared with others.