EDITH STEIN –
St. Teresa Benedicta of
the Cross
Jewish convert to Catholicism
Edith Stein was born on October
12, 1891, Yom Kippur, of Orthodox Jewish parents. A
brilliant Jewish girl, but at age 14 she suddenly stopped praying and dropped
out of school, angry because an anti-Semitic teacher consistently refused to
put her at the head of the class even though the entire class thought she had
earned it. However, eager for
education, she received private tutoring and was admitted to the University of
Breslau, one of the very first women admitted to full matriculation at a major
university, where she majored in psychology.
The
Philosophy Years
In the summer of 1913, when she
was nearly 22 years old, Edith was an atheist on the surface but a Jew deep in
her heart. This is fairly common among
young Jews when their faith is presented to them simply as ethical idealism. They see it as a philosophy rather than a
faith, and find it appropriate to probe its defects. Edith took a neutral position on God and
refused all religious practice. Instead,
she began to look for intellectual principles more deeply rooted in truth than
those of Judaism.
Edith Stein did not find these
higher principles in psychology, so she switched to the University of Göttingen
to study philosophy under Edmund Husserl. His “phenomenology” sought to make philosophy
a hard science by resolving the conflict between empiricism (observation) and
rationalism (reason and theory). Phenomenology
highlights the origin of all philosophical and scientific systems and
theoretical constructs in the experiential life. Soon Edith became Husserl’s most gifted
student; and when she had brilliantly completed her studies with a doctorate
summa cum laude, he took her on as his assistant and collaborator.
The
Old Damascus Road
Christ calls to us in ways that
fill our needs. Phenomenology led Edith
Stein into a state of Voraussetzungslosigkeit, total impartiality, without
which she would have been incapable of opening herself to thinking of God in
terms of objective analysis. She set
out to understand what should be her relationship with God. She began to weigh the three alternatives
within her environment: Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic.
She tried to return to the
Judaism of her parents, especially by reading the Old Testament prophets. After
deep exploration, Edith decided that Judaism did not fill the need in her
heart. But she never tried to refute it, as some Jews
who have become complete in Christ do. She
was always respectful. Her exploration
of Protestant religion fit in with her preference for Bach’s Christian music. More important, the Christian response to
grief for the atrocities of World War I and the strength of Christian hope born
of the Cross of Christ deeply impressed her.
Edith had tried to reach Christ
on a rational level, but He reached her heart. She had become close to Adolf and Anna
Reinach, both Jewish converts to the Evangelical Church. Adolf enlisted early in World War I and was
killed in 1917. Edith went to his home to help Anna arrange his scholarly papers.
She had also come to console Anna. Anna, however, was serene; her deep Christian
faith led her to see the Cross in Adolf’s death. Anna’s deep faith made a deep impression on
Edith, and prepared her for what was to come.
Relating this experience many years
later to Father Hirschaum, a Jesuit, Edith told him, “This was my first meeting with the Cross, with the divine strength it
brings to those who bear it. I saw for
the first time within my reach the Church, born of the Redeemer’s sufferings in
his victory over the sting of death. It
was at that moment that my incredulity was shattered and the light of Christ
shone forth, Christ in the mystery of the Cross.” However, this was
preparation. Many Jews who find Christ, myself included,
experience something like what Saul of Tarsus experienced on the road to
Damascus, which breaks our attachment to our old way of thinking and prepares
us for the conversion itself.
During the next three or four
years Edith, again like many Jews attracted to Christ, entered a period of
intense reflection. She read numerous
books on Catholic spirituality. One day
she bought a book on the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. She began by getting involved in the
Exercises at a purely psychological level, but after a few pages she found this
impossible. She ended up doing the
Spiritual Exercises as an atheist thirsting for God. The Exercises were Christ’s preparation for
what was to follow. That came in June 1921. She went to Bergzabern, to the home of a
friend, Hedwig Konrad Martius, a regular meeting place of Husserl former
students. Edith discovered in the
library The Book of the Life, the autobiography of the great Spanish mystic, St
Teresa of Avila, who originated the Carmelite Reform that restored and
emphasized the austerity and contemplative character of primitive Carmelite
life. Edith, astonishingly, finished the entire book in a single night. Closing it, she exclaimed, “This is the
truth!" Her Damascus transformation was complete; all became light for her.
The Path to Carmel
Edith was baptised on January 1st
1922 and at once began to consider becoming a Carmelite nun. She had always sought the most complete path;
Carmel seemed the only way to satisfy her desire for totality. Thirty years old, full of energy and
enthusiasm, her faith became an integral part of her life.
Mt. Carmel is in some mysterious
way associated with Jews who become Catholic. The prophet Elijah had spent most of his life
on Mt. Carmel. Elijah, the rabbis
taught, would return to herald the arrival of the Messiah. Jesus
told us Mt 11:14 “[John the Baptist] is Elijah who is to come.” Rev. Elias Friedman, a Jew who became a
Catholic priest and founded the Association of Hebrew Catholics, was a
Carmelite friar. Edith Stein, when she
was baptized, received a vocation to Carmel.
Twelve years passed, however,
before she entered the Carmel of Cologne. During that time she taught at the Institute
for Scientific Pedagogy in Munster, gave lecture tours, studied, and above all
matured interiorly. Here again,
Christ’s ways are above ours. Edith may
well have continued her brilliant academic career for the rest of her life, but
the rising tide of anti-Semitic measures made it impossible for her to continue
teaching. Edith became a Carmelite nun,
taking the name of Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
Taking the name “Teresa Benedicta
of the Cross” as a symbol of her
acceptance of suffering.
“I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the Cross of Christ
should take upon themselves on everybody's behalf.” She saw it as her vocation “to intercede
with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose
tragic fate was becoming clear.
“I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so
that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in
glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.”
The Germans discovered her Jewish
origins. She was no longer safe behind
monastery walls in Germany, so in the wee hours of New Year’s Day 1939 she was
taken to Holland, to the Carmel of Echt. It seemed tranquil, but Edith sensed
that she would not escape the destiny of her people.
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| Auschwitz Concentration Camp WWII |
The Final Journey
On Sunday July 26, 1942, a
protest by the Catholic Bishops of Holland against the Nazi deportation of
Dutch Jews was read at every Mass in all churches. It said, “In this we are following the path
indicated by our Holy Father, the Pope.” Gestapo General-Commissar Schmidt announced,
“We are compelled to regard the Catholic Jews as our worst enemies and
consequently see to their deportation to the East with all possible speed.” One week later, the Gestapo arrested,
deported, and sent to Auschwitz all Dutch Catholics of Jewish origin. At the Carmel of Echt, while she was writing
her book on the doctrine of St John of the Cross, titled The Science of the
Cross, two officials of the German occupation forces came to the monastery. She had to go with them, together with her
sister Rose, also a convert, who had joined her in Echt. Edith
and Rose Stein were deported to Auschwitz.
On August 9th, 1942, St. Teresa Benedicta of
the Cross, in a white house filled with Zyklon-B gas, went to heaven. She is remembered on August 9th as her feast day in the Church.
Pope John Paul II beatified Sr.
Teresa Benedicta of the Cross on May 1, 1987 and canonized her on Oct. 11, 1998.
St. Teresa Benedicta, pray for
us!
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| Auschwitz Crematorium and Gas Chamber WWII |
Article taken from --- The Carmelite’s website
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