Finally, the new saint teaches us that love for Christ undergoes suffering. Indeed, today I know far better what it means to be the Lord's bride under the sign of the Cross. The mystery of the Cross gradually enveloped her whole life, spurring her to the point of making the supreme sacrifice. Many of our contemporaries would like to silence the Cross. The true message of suffering is a lesson of love.
Love makes suffering fruitful and suffering deepens love.
Through the experience of the Cross, Edith Stein was able to open the way to a new encounter with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith and the Cross proved inseparable to her. Having matured in the school of the Cross, she found the roots to which the tree of her own life was attached. Dear brothers and sisters, the divine Teacher spoke these words to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. The depth of the divine mystery became perceptible to her in the silence of contemplation.