Christians are often advised against complaining. St. Bernadette said, “I must die to myself continually and accept trials without complaining.” St. Macarius warns, “Watch out for complaining. It only makes situations worse and increases sorrow.” In a September 2013 interview published in America magazine, Pope Francis said, “Complaining never helps us find God.”
Today the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a saint better known by her worldly name, Edith Stein. She was a renowned philosopher of the last century as well as an avowed atheist who, though culturally born Jewish, found her way into the bosom of the Catholic Church, and eventually, into a cloistered Carmelite monastery. She died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz on Aug. 9, 1942. For some of you, the question might arise: “What does this saint’s life have to do with me teaching in a Catholic school?”