Let Us make man in Our image.
(Genesis 1:26)
I used to pray in front of a Greek Icon of Jesus I had on my desk. One day, realising that that image took my imagination to the Byzantine Ancient world, rather than to the Jewish world of my Jewish Jesus, I decided to perform an “experiment”:
I prayed seeeing my own image in the mirror. This may be interpreted as an act of egolatry. But… let´s face it: to pray in front of a plaster, wood or stone image of Jesus, Mary, or any other saint is taken as idolatry by many Christians (protestants, especially), Muslims or the Jewish.
Personally, I don’t think veneration of images of any kind is opposed per se to the true adoration due to God alone, as long as the image help us to think in the invisible God. And this applies also to our own image.
At the beginning I tried this way of praying thinking of that quotation from the Genesis that says that any human being is an image of God. So, when I see myself, I see an image of God. This is comparable …More

Although the memory of Thérèse of Lisieux is celebrated on October 1st, it is important to know that this was not the day of her death.
Thérèse died on September 30th 1897, but when a day to celebrate her memory was chosen, this date could not be chosen because another saint already occupied this place in the calendar, Saint Jerome, who died on September 30th 420.
Jerome translated the Bible from the original Hebrew and Greek texts into Latin. This translation, known as "the Vulgate", made the Bible accessible to many of the saint's contemporaries who only spoke Latin. Centuries later, even when Latin was no longer a living language, the Vulgate became the official translation of the Bible, to be used in the Mass and other liturgical celebrations.
But St. Jerome was not simply a translator; he was above all a lover of the Word. He said that "ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ”. In his honour, the month of September is the month of the Bible.
It does not seem to be a …More

On Sunday, August 19, 1900, in the village of Marienberg (next to the Volga River), where my great-grandfather Antonio Rausch was born, the new parish church was consecrated.
Even though Antonio had already emigrated to Argentina by that time, the place where that temple was built is significant to me since the chapel of that village was located there, which was dismantled to build the new church. For sure, he was baptized there, and he must have gone to Mass every Sunday with his family.
It is also significant because the construction of this new church was the subject of much debate among the villagers which lasted 20 years preceding the consecration.
The Bishop of Saratov, who presided over the ceremony, referred to these discussions with this phrase: "When the Lord wants to build a church, the devil builds a sacristy next to it". I can imagine my great-great-grandfather Christoph Rausch, one of the founders of Marienberg, taking part in the first discussions, although I cannot imagine …More

Susanne Batzdorff is Edith Stein's niece. Susanne was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1921 and now lives in Santa Rosa, California. She contributed articles to periodicals, including NY Times, America, Moment Magazine. Susanne also edited and contributed to several volumes by and about Edith Stein and translated several of her works originally published in German. Furthermore, she wrote a book, "Aunt Edith: The Jewish Heritage of a Catholic Saint". This is a speech she delivered in 2013:
In my work relating to Edith Stein I was always conscious of my role as a close relative who knew her personally, who remembered her vividly and who therefore had that close personal relationship; that it was my place: to make sure that her portrayal by others would not depart from truth, because truth was so important to her! And it's important to me to see her truthfully represented and not by distortion, by exaggeration, and untruth that could have a way of creeping into the picture when nobody seems …More

Susanne M. Batzdorff February 13, 1999
Susanne M. Batzdorff is a niece of Edith Stein, the Carmelite nun who was put to death at Auschwitz in August 1942 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in Rome on October 11, 1998. Mrs. Batzdorff now lives in Santa Rosa, Calif.
This article originally appeared in the February 13, 1999 issue of America.
America published 10 years ago an article I wrote on the subject of Catholic-Jewish relations with the title "Catholics and Jews: Can We Bridge the Abyss?" (3/11/89). My aunt, Edith Stein, had been beatified on May 1, 1987, in Cologne, and I was writing with that event fresh in my mind. Frankly, I had not expected that the church would proceed so quickly to the canonization of Edith Stein, who is also known as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, the name she received when she became a Carmelite nun in 1933. When it became clear that the canonization ceremony would happen in my lifetime, I was once again confronted with the questions: Should I attend? …More