|
|
Dear brothers and sisters in Carmel,
1.
Our sister, Blessed Teresa Benedicta of the
Cross (Edith Stein), will be canonized at St
Peter's Basilica in Rome on 11th
October 1998. Her canonization marks the end
of a long journey in search of the truth,
accompanied by suffering and evangelical
unselfishness that led her into the twofold
dimension of the paschal mystery: death and
resurrection; losing her life for Christ in
order to find it (cf.
Mt 10.39). The words
she uttered on leaving Echt Carmel in
Holland, as she took her sister Rosa by the
hand, illustrate the commitment of her life:
ACome, let us go for our people@. When the
bishops in Holland protested in a pastoral
letter against the deportations of Jews by
the National Socialists, the latter, who had
at first left baptised Jews alone, took
vengeance by exterminating all the Catholic
Jews, too. Edith Stein died a follower of
Jesus Christ, offering her martyrdom for her
fellow Jews.
The
canonization of Edith Stein is a new plea
that God makes to the Church, to Carmelites
in particular, on the eve of the Third
Millennium. The life of this great Jewish
women, who sought the truth and followed
Jesus, offers a timely message for relations
between faith and science, for ecumenical
dialogue, for consecrated life and for
spirituality, speaking, as it does, to the
members of the Church and those outside it.
Open to the
voice of the Spirit that reaches us through
the life and martyrdom of our sister, let us
try to delve into her experience and
teachings to renew our own lives and make
our vocation and mission more dynamic and
committed.
I
EDITH STEIN, A WOMAN OF OUR TIME
2. A
woman of our time, Edith Stein offers,
through her life and writings, valuable
guidance to help eliminate certain
unilateral visions that do not tally with
full recognition of the dignity of women and
their specific contribution to society and
the Church. In this day and age, AIt is
therefore urgently necessary to take certain
concrete steps, beginning by providing room
for women to participate in different fields
and at all levels, including decision-making
processes, above all in matters which
concern women themselves@.
Her search
for the truth
3.
Edith Stein devoted part of her life to the
truth she sought and found. First of all,
she abandoned the Jewish faith and immersed
herself in philosophy in an attempt to
understand the meaning of human existence.
She later moved from atheism to the Catholic
faith and, in following Jesus, she gradually
acquired through experience the Ascience of
the cross@. This enabled her to enter Carmel
and, later on, to die for her faith and her
people.
Upon
reconsidering her search for the truth, she
concluded that
AGod is truth. All who
seek truth seek God, whether this is clear
to them or not@;
and also that
AOne who seeks truth
lives principally at the heart of an
actively searching intellect. If he is
really concerned about the truth (not merely
collecting single bits of knowledge), then
he is perhaps nearer to God who is Truth,
and therefore to his own inmost region, than
he himself knows.@
4.
She found the last, definitive impetus in
her long search for the truth and
authenticity in her encounter with Teresa of
Jesus. In August 1921, when Edith was
visiting friends, she came across the
autobiography of the saint from Avila in
their library:
AI picked at random
and took out a large volume. It bore the
title The
Life of St Teresa of Avila, written by
herself. I
began to read, was at once captivated, and
did not stop till I reached the end. As I
closed the book, I said, >That is the truth'@
After reflecting later on the book of the
Life of Teresa of Jesus she explained the
reason why it had caused such a great
impression on her, thus revealing her ardent
thirst for truth:
ASave for the
Confessions of Saint Augustine, there is no
other book anywhere in the world that bears
the seal of truth like this one, lighting up
the darkest corners of the soul and giving a
heart-rending testimony of the >mercy of
God'@
Teresa of
Jesus played a decisive role in the
conversion of Edith and, therefore, she felt
very early on a call to devote her life to
the service of the Lord in Carmel, for the
good of mankind. One of the witnesses at her
beatification told us what the saint had
said to him: AThe Servant of God told me
that she appreciated Carmel because she had
more time for personal meditation there.
Ever since her baptism she had felt an
inclination towards this Order. She didn't
even consider a Benedictine closed monastery
because she wouldn't have had all the time
she needed for meditation@.
Conversion
as a discovery and a loss
5.
She overcame the last hurdle of her atheism
after her encounter with the cross and the
strength that it gave out in the life of a
protestant friend, Anne Reinach, widow of
the philosopher Adolf Reinach. She was to
say this clearly later on:
AIt
was then that I first encountered the Cross
and the divine strength which it inspires in
those who bear it. For the first time I saw
before my very eyes the Church, born of
Christ's redemptive suffering, victorious
over the sting of death. It was the moment
in which my unbelief was shattered, Judaism
paled, and Christ streamed out upon me:
Christ in the mystery of the Cross@.
Later, in Echt, she
wrote to the Prioress of Echt,
AA scientia crucis [knowledge
of the Cross] can be gained only when one
comes to feel the Cross radically. I have
been convinced of that from the first moment
and have said, from my heart: Ave, Crux,
spes unica! [Hail, Cross, our only hope].
6.
Edith Stein became a Catholic in 1922, at
the age of 31. The underlying reason for her
conversion lies precisely in her discovering
in the cross the road to resurrection,
transforming the evangelical paradox of
losing to win into a profound experience.
Her conversion to Catholicism brought family
problems to her. Her family did not
understand why she had made this decision.
In her book The Science of the Cross,
she explains this connection between glory
and suffering. The passion and death of
Christ consume our sins in fire. Therefore,
as long as we accept this truth, through our
faith, and try to follow Jesus, He will lead
us through his passion and cross to the
glory of resurrection. Edith was to combine
this belief with the experience of
contemplation that, passing through
purification, would reach union of love with
God:
AThis explains its
twofold character. It is death and
resurrection. After the Dark Night, the
Living Flame shines forth.@
This is how the Ascience of the cross@ is
possessed.
Edith's
conversion was by no means easy. Years of
searching came finally to an end when she
discovered the autobiography of Teresa of
Jesus. As in St Teresa's life, Christ
gradually became the essence of Edith's
existence. In Him she found the Truth, with
a capital T, and the close friend she could
talk to always. Her conversion was of a
radical nature. At first, she thought that
she had to give up everything worldly to
live concentrated solely on divine things.
Only gradually did she begin to realise that
Athe deeper one is drawn into God, the more
one must >go out of oneself'; that is, one
must go to the world in order to carry the
divine life into it@
7. The
human and spiritual journey of Edith Stein
is the journey of a woman of our times. From
her personal experience as a woman and her
philosophical-anthropological reflection on
the existence and mission of the human
person, she showed herself concerned about
the role of women in society and the Church.
Her intellectual capacity, university and
professional training, her dedication to
teaching, made her a woman who, from a
conscious female identity, experienced the
challenges of a mission. Edith met the
challenges presented by the prevailing
social and ecclesiastical circumstances with
a clear, balanced mind.
When teaching
in Speyer from 1923 to 1931, she was able to
tackle the problems of training women and
helped her disciples to develop their
qualities as women created, just as men were,
in the image of God. She also stressed the
supernatural vocation of women and the
ethics of female professions. Her
reflections were based on a detailed
analysis of the particular characteristics
of female psychology.
She was thus
able to demonstrate the richness of a female
Christian life devoted to fulfilling a
mission forming part of the real world. This
explains why she was so dedicated to the
apostolate of teaching, despite the fact
that following her conversion she no longer
made the effort, as she had done earlier, to
get a university chair in her capacity as a
woman. In her work as teacher, she knew how
to combine professional competence with a
direct, personal relationship with her
pupils. They always remember her as an
open-minded, understanding woman, ahead of
her times in recognising the true value of
women and in her generous commitment to
promoting women in all aspects. She joined
the
Bavarian Catholic Union
of Women Teachers
and the
Union of Young Women Teachers. This
widened the horizon of her influence and
teaching to guide the women of her time and
ours.
Special
characteristics of women's vocation
8. The
philosophical-anthropological reflections of
Edith Stein were based on her own experience
enlightened by Holy Scripture, especially
the first pages, where, speaking about the
creation of the human race, man and woman
are presented as God's image in their
equality and diversity: AOriginally, man and
woman were both made responsible to preserve
their own likeness to God, their lordship
over the earth, and the reproduction of the
human race.
From this
philosophical-anthropological, (rather than
sociological) analysis, Edith stressed two
characteristics belonging to female
psychology: personal commitment in her
collaboration with man, as well as maternity.
Her vocation as man's companion leads her to
share in everything that affects man,
whether great or small. She accompanies man,
at his side, takes part in his life with
love. Therefore, Athe capacity for empathy
with others and their needs and the capacity
and docility for adaptation are more
developed in the nature of woman@. She has a
profound need to share her life with another
and, consequently, a capacity for unselfish
love, for commitment, a capacity to forget
about self. Furthermore, her inclination
towards maternity draws her to all living
and personal things and to a type of more
specific, contemplative knowledge. Her
nature as mother and companion guides her to
all that Arelationship with a person@ means.
Her mission is to have children and, as the
continuation of Eve called Amother of all
living@, she is also responsible for
preparing for Athe restoration of life@.
This led her to highlight the meaning and
greatness of spiritual maternity in
religious life which fulfils the desire
women have for totality, since it fits in
with the characteristics of femininity: AThe
motive, principle, and end of the religious
life is to make an absolute gift of self to
God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's
own life in order to make room for God's
life@.
A message
for women today
9. The
reflections of Edith Stein through
experience and philosophy on the nature and
role of women are very topical in today's
world and Church, as they become
increasingly aware of the importance of
promoting women and the need to make room
for them in social, economic, political and
religious life. Authentic feminism finds in
Edith's
life and writings valuable guidance to live
and promote the dignity and role of women
through her identity and mission, springing
from the very depths of her being. We can
say the same for the meaning of consecrated
life which, considered as a gift of self to
God and others, is a full realisation of
women's aspirations: commitment, maternity,
service.
For Edith
Stein, the ideal model of these feminine
values was the Virgin Mary. In her, AThe
feminine sex is ennobled by virtue of the
Savior's being born of a human mother; a
woman was the gateway through which God
found entrance to humankind@. With the gift
of herself she committed herself to this
mission, which she accepted with silent
trust, putting her whole being at the
service of the Lord for the foundation of
the Kingdom of God. This commitment of Mary
makes her a model for women in all areas of
human life: family, social and
ecclesiastical, since she shows interest in
the social and political problems in the
middle verse of the Magnificat,
dethroning the mighty. Therefore, neither
men nor women can remain cut off from real
situations or reply with indifference to the
challenges that arise.
II
FROM JUDAISM TO ATHEISM
THEN THE
CHRISTIAN FAITH
10. In
the lose-to-win process that characterises
the life of Edith Stein, she lost her Jewish
faith at the age of 14 when she set off on
the road of atheism, and finally, 17 years
later, she won the Christian faith.
Her Jewish
roots and her way to conversion
Born within a
family of strict Jewish observance, she was
the youngest of eleven children. When she
was barely two years old, her father died.
Her mother, a woman of character and energy,
took on the education of her children and
the management of the business set up by her
husband. From the time she started studying,
Edith revealed great intellectual capacity.
In 1911, she enrolled in the Faculty of
Germanic Studies, History and Psychology at
the University of Breslau. In 1913, she
transferred to the University of Göttingen
to attend the courses of the famous
philosopher Edmund Husserl, the principal
exponent of phenomenology. In 1916 she moved
as his assistant to Freiburg where, the
following year, she was awarded the title of
Doctor in Philosophy with the highest
distinction.
Before she
arrived at Göttingen, Edith already
considered herself an atheist. Her religious
education based mainly on externals, lacking
deeper understanding, along with her school
education modelled on post-Kantian idealism,
led to the loss of her Jewish faith. In
effect, philosophical idealism highlighted a
certain impossibility concerning the things
and facts forming the object of faith. Edith
did not accept anything that could not be
proved, including her parents' faith. She
concentrated all her efforts on
philosophical reflection until, through such
reflection and particularly through the
witness other people gave, she found Christ.
The breakdown of her atheism did not
immediately mean conversion to Christianity,
and even less did it imply recovery of the
Jewish faith of her childhood. It was a slow
maturing that guaranteed the depth of her
personal encounter with Christ.
Her encounter
with Max Scheler and Edmund Husserl was
decisive in her search for the meaning of
human life and the reason for mankind's
existence. They helped open her eyes to the
field of Aphenomena@, to which, as she said,
she could never again close them. AWith good
reason we were repeatedly enjoined to
observe all things without prejudice, to
discard all possible >blinders'@. The
phenomenological method could be said to
have led her by the hand to the world of
values and faith, passing through the
experience of the finiteness of the human
being. This opened her eyes to the eternal
Being.
Identified
with her people
11. Her
conversion to Christianity led Edith Stein
to rediscover her Jewish roots and belonging
to the people of Israel. In addition to her
family ties, which grew stronger, there
began to grow in her life of Christian faith
the conviction that she had also been called
to offer her suffering and life for her
people.
It was not an
easy road. She had to accept the pain that
the news of her conversion was going to
cause her mother, who was strongly
identified with the Jewish faith. She even
feared rejection by her family. Her mother
expressed her astonishment at this change,
as did her brothers and sisters, but they
had to respect a decision matured through a
slow, conscious search for the truth. Edith
tried to be close to her mother by stopping
in Breslau for several months. During that
time she went with her mother to the
synagogue and even, on the Day of Atonement,
fasted with her. Her mother, on the other
hand, was greatly impressed by the way her
daughter prayed.
Her love for
her people and awareness of the mission that
the Lord had given her grew even stronger
when the persecution against Jews started to
get more severe. She felt that her belonging
to the chosen people united her to Christ
not only spiritually but also by blood. She
was convinced that the fate of her
persecuted people was also her fate. She did
what she could to help them and even wrote
to the Pope asking him to issue a document
on the question of anti-Semitism. She had
known since 1933 that the cross of Christ
would be put on the shoulders of the Jewish
people even though they did not understand
it. She then indicated to the Lord her wish
to accept it on behalf of all those who did
not see it as such. She was convinced of her
mission to take the sufferings of her people
into her heart to offer them to God in
atonement: AAnd (I also trust) in the Lord's
having accepted my life for all of them. I
keep having to think of Queen Esther who was
taken from among her people precisely that
she might represent them before the king. I
am a very poor and powerless little Esther,
but the King who chose me is infinitely
great and merciful@
A bridge
for Jewish-Christian dialogue
12.
Through her life and death, our sister Edith
Stein had the mission, of acting as a bridge
for Jewish-Christian dialogue. The Second
Vatican Council acknowledged the vast
spiritual heritage common to Christians and
Jews and, accordingly, recommended to both
sides Athat mutual understanding and respect
which is the fruit, above all, of biblical
and theological studies as well as of
fraternal dialogues@.
The cross of
Christ, Asign of God's all-embracing love
and ... the fountain from which every grace
flows@, was the spiritual experience that
sealed the Christian and religious life of
Edith Stein. It gave sense to her existence
and for this reason she included it in her
religious name: Teresa Benedicta of the
Cross. John Paul II, in his homily on the
day of her beatification, presented her as a
Adramatic synthesis of our century in her
rich life. Hers was a synthesis of a history
full of deep wounds, wounds that still hurt,
and for the healing of which responsible men
and women have continued to work up to the
present day ... (she was) a woman of the
spirit and of the mind, who saw in the
science of the Cross the acme of all wisdom,
as a great daughter of the Jewish people and
as a believing Christian in the midst of
millions of innocent fellow people made
martyrs.
Precisely this
way of living and accepting the cross made
Edith Stein a spokesperson for her fellow
Jews, showing them that in love and hope
suffering is meaningful in the light of the
mystery of faith in the resurrection of
Christ, who died for all.
III
EDITH STEIN, A WOMAN FOLLOWER OF
JESUS
13. The
conversion of Edith Stein was closely linked
to the experience of the cross, her
encounter with Christ occurring precisely
out of that experience. At the same time,
she was focussed on his entire mystery, to
the extent that she could say AChrist is the
centre point of my life@. Her Christological
thought is expressed in several writings. It
should be remembered that behind those
theological reflections is a spiritual
experience that gives them meaning.
The discovery
of the person of Jesus presupposes a
personal experience that entirely changed
her view of things, people and events. He is
the Truth and this concept drew Edith close
to Christ. From this contact she discovered
that Jesus is the Way and the Life, and she
abandoned herself into his hands to follow
him, bearing the burden of the cross in
everyday life as she gave herself up to the
will of the Father.
Following
Jesus, to continue his work
14. The
essence of Christian life is to follow
Jesus. This means reliving in our own lives
the relationship Jesus had with God, others
and the world as it really is. Therefore, it
implies an attitude of giving ourselves up
trustingly to God, a fraternal communion
with others and a capacity for encountering
God and our brothers and sisters in the
transformation of creation and in sharing
it. This, therefore, commits us to working
for what Jesus worked for and to be willing
to go through what He went through:
incomprehension, persecution, death and
resurrection. Edith Stein lived all those
aspects of following Jesus and puts across
to us in her writings what her own deep
experience taught her.
Edith's life
was principally one of confident surrender
to the Father. Following Jesus in her
relation with the AAbba@, even surrounded by
the humiliation, suffering and abandonment
of the cross, she experienced his presence
and love, which supported her in the
darkness of the night of trial: AI have been
supported and that support makes me feel
calm and secure. It is not the secure
confidence of a man who stands on firm
ground with his own strength, but the
gentle, happy security of a child resting on
a strong arm, in other words, a security
which, when considered objectively, is no
less reasonable. Indeed, would it be
reasonable for a child to be constantly
anxious lest his mother drop him?@ This
sureness of the love of God the Father also
led her to imitate Jesus in giving herself
up to the fulfilment of his will with
confidence: ATo be a child of God means to
go hand-in-hand, to do his will not one's
own; to place all our hopes and cares in his
hands and no longer be concerned about one's
self or future. Thereupon rest the freedom
and the good cheer of the child of God@.
Following
Jesus she was able to experience no less
than the demands of fraternity: AIf God is
in us and if he is love, then it cannot be
otherwise but to love one another. Therefore
our love for our brothers and sisters is the
measure of our love for God@.
At first,
following her conversion, she thought that
she had to abandon everything to devote
herself entirely to God, leaving aside all
other activities. With the help of her
spiritual directors she soon changed this
idea and realised that in following Jesus
she was bound to collaborate with Him in the
advent of his Kingdom. In a letter written
in 1928, she tells us about this process of
change that led her to accept apostolic
commitment as part of what the Gospel
demands: AImmediately before, and for a good
while after my conversion, I was of the
opinion that to lead a religious life meant
one had to give up all that was secular and
live totally immersed in thoughts of the
Divine. But gradually I realized that
something else is asked of us in this world
and that, even in the contemplative life,
one may not sever the connection with the
world. I even believe that the deeper one is
drawn into God, the more one must >go out of
oneself'; that is, one must go out to the
world in order to carry the divine life into
it.
Accompanying Christ along the way of the
cross
15. One
characteristic of following Jesus, strongly
marked in the Christological experience of
Edith Stein, was undoubtedly the presence of
the cross and suffering as a fact resulting
from that following. Right from the start
she considered AChrist... the poor,
humiliated, crucified one who is abandoned
on the cross even by his heavenly Father@.
It had to be like that since Christ had
offered his life to open the doors of
eternal life to mankind. It is, therefore,
necessary to die with Christ and rise from
the dead with Him; AThe lifelong death of
suffering and daily self-denial, and even,
if necessary, the bloody death of a martyr
for the Gospel of Christ@.
Through this
living out the cross in everyday life, she
slowly acquired the Ascience of the cross@
and began to write her last theological work
under that title; a work that she did not
physically finish writing. She concluded it
by taking up, not in theory, but as a
living, effective truth, the cross of
martyrdom. This was prepared for through the
crosses that the poor, limited existence of
human beings imposes with its ups and downs,
sacrifice and acceptance of sickness,
dryness, monotony, existential vacuum,
living together, trials and temptations.
AThe cross is the symbol of all that is
difficult and oppressive and so against
nature that taking it upon oneself is like a
journey to death. And the disciple of Jesus
is to take up this burden daily@.
Edith found the meaning of
the cross in love and atonement united with
that of Christ. He died on the cross out of
love and, therefore, this reality, a
stumbling block to Jews and folly to the
Greeks (cf. 1 Cor
1:23) became the sign
of God's love for mankind. This is where the
strength comes from to live the commandment
of love thy neighbour to its fullest. What
gives our crosses and sufferings value is
taking them up in communion with Christ
crucified, who leads us through his passion
and his cross to the glory of resurrection.
16. The
cross of Christ, lived in solidarity with
all those who suffer, is also a way to
participate in the hopes and joy, sadness
and anguish of mankind with the certainty of
life and resurrection. To suffer with Christ
is to enter into communion with all those
who suffer along the tough, arduous road of
life to alleviate their sufferings and give
them the certain hope of the final victory
of good and love: AEveryone who, in the
course of time, has borne an onerous destiny
in remembrance of the suffering Savior or
who has freely taken up works of expiation
has by doing so cancelled some of the mighty
load of human sin and has helped the Lord
carry his burden@.
We have in Edith Stein a
model of commitment to following Jesus, by
accepting the crosses of life: the cross of
our human limitation, the cross of fighting
against suffering, the cross of solidarity
with those who suffer, the cross of working
for a world of peace and justice. Edith's
life sums up for us the Pauline experience
of losing everything to win Jesus and of
considering everything rubbish in comparison
with Him, and by proclaiming the cross of
Christ as the only road to salvation: for
Athe message of the cross is folly for those
who are on the way to ruin, but for those of
us who are on the road to salvation it is
the power of God@ (1
Cor 1:18), and Awhat
were once my assets I now through Christ
Jesus count as losses. Yes, I will go
further: because of the supreme advantage of
knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I count
everything else as loss. For him I have
accepted the loss of all other things, and
look on them all as filth if only I can gain
Christ@ (Phil 3:7-8).
IV
EDITH STEIN, DAUGHTER OF TERESA
OF JESUS AND JOHN OF THE CROSS
17.
From her conversion to Christ, Edith Stein
considered the possibility of devoting
herself to Christ in Carmel. However, she
put off joining a Teresian monastery out of
obedience to her confessors, who pointed out
the apostolic importance of her teaching
work. Only after more than eleven years did
she see clearly, in prayerful discernment,
that the long-awaited time had come to
consecrate herself to God in the
contemplative life of Carmel. She was
absolutely convinced that her entire life,
down to the smallest details, formed part of
a plan of God and that only He knew the full
significance, and now part of that plan was
being revealed through human mediation: AThe
umsturz (dismissal from teaching) was
for me a sign from heaven that I might now
go the way that I had long considered as
mine.... I entered the monastery of the (Discalced)
Carmelite Nuns here last Saturday and thus
became a daughter of St Teresa, who earlier
inspired me to conversion@. On 14th
October 1933, she joined the Cologne
Carmelite convent which at that time had 21
nuns.
A deep
change of life: losing to win
18.
Suddenly, at the age of 42, the structure of
Edith's life changed. She left behind her
world of academic and intellectual
activities, great friendships and her family
and entered the tiny space of a
contemplative monastery with all the
limitations that this necessarily entailed.
She had to adapt to a world of rites,
customs and ceremonies, inherited from the
past, which interwove the life of the nuns.
Although the cultural level at Cologne
convent was good, the level she had acquired
over her long years of study and teaching
was far higher. Edith had to make huge
effort to adapt to this radical change in
her life: from a personal organisation to a
community organisation marked by regular
observance; from teaching to manual work;
from concentrating on the essential to the
need to take details into account.
In her letters
and other writings, she expressed what this
new structure of life and activities meant
for her. Through the effort to adapt and by
accepting that she had to lose many things
of worth, she gained the richness of a life
centred on prayer and experience of God in
the silence and solitude of a praying
community at the service of the Kingdom of
God: AOur daily schedule ensures us of hours
for solitary dialogue with the Lord, and
these are the foundation of our life... No
human eye can see what God does in the soul
during hours of inner prayer. It is grace
upon grace. And all of life's other hours
are our thanks for them@.
19. The
Provincial of the Discalced Carmelites of
Germany, Fr. Theodor Rauch, was present on
the day Edith took the habit, 15th
April 1934. Immediately after that ceremony
he made a pastoral visit of the monastery
and decided that sister Teresa Benedicta of
the Cross (the name she chose as a
Carmelite) should return to her scientific
work insofar as her duties as a Carmelite
would allow. The Lord thus led her to take
up her philosophical work again and she
subsequently wrote many more studies and
reflections, both in Cologne and later at
the Echt monastery. She revised and finished
a book published around that time: Act
und Potenz (Act and Potency). She also
finished the book Endliches und ewiges
Sein (Finite and Eternal Being). Later,
at Echt, she was to commence her unfinished
work Kreuzeswissenschaft (The Science of
the Cross).
This type of
work, which was rather an exception, brought
her certain problems within the community
and required a double effort to remain
faithful to the essence of her contemplative
life right down to the small details of
community organisation. She could be
considered a modern woman, open to wider
horizons than those of a small group of
consecrated women living in the limited
space of an enclosure, yet she remained
faithful to the commitments she had taken
on, even though this meant a great sacrifice
for her. In this respect she wrote:
ACarmelites can repay God's love by their
everyday lives in no other way than by
carrying out their daily duties faithfully
in every respect B all the little sacrifices
that a regimen structured day after day in
all its details demands of an active spirit;
all the self-control that living in close
proximity with different kinds of people
continually requires and that is achieved
with a loving smile; letting no opportunity
go by for serving others in love. Finally,
crowning this is the personal sacrifice that
the Lord may impose on the individual soul@.
Several months before her profession, she
wrote to a friend: AI joyfully anticipate
making my profession in April. But it is a
good thing that one need not be >finished'
by that time, for I have a feeling that the
actual novitiate began only recently, since
I no longer expend so much energy in growing
used to externals like ceremonies, customs,
and so on@.
Transferral to
the Dutch convent at Echt on 31st
December 1938, meant for Teresa Benedicta of
the Cross further effort at adaptation to
community life. Echt had been founded from
Cologne and had at that time 14 choir nuns
and 4 lay, or Awhite-veiled@, sisters, as
they were called at that time. Here too, she
knew how to combine her intellectual work -
largely geared towards training her sisters
- with her duties as a member of an enclosed
monastery. In Echt she ended up offering her
life in the name of peace: ADear Mother ....
allow me to offer myself to the heart of
Jesus as a sacrifice of propitiation for
true peace.... I know that I am a nothing,
but Jesus desires it, and surely he will
call many others to do likewise in these
days@. She set out from Echt on 2nd
August 1942 to die seven days later on 9th
August in a gas chamber at
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Daughter
and disciple of Teresa of Jesus and John of
the Cross
20.
Edith Stein found in Teresa of Jesus the
same love that she considered the truth and
learned from her above all the meaning of
prayer as a friendly dialogue with God, its
Christ-centred and apostolic dimension. For
Edith, prayer times were the centre point of
the life of a Carmelite. Everything she
could do or accomplish had to start there:
Ahere there is rest, clarity and peace; here
all doubts and problems are resolved; here
one gets to know oneself and what God
expects of one; here one can make requests
and raise up treasures of grace that may be
generously shared with others@.
Edith Stein
developed the Christ-centred dimension of
Teresian prayer. Above all, she presented
the prayer life of Jesus as the key to
understanding the prayer of the Church.
Christ taught us prayer in praise of the
Father and to make our life a prayer of
commitment to his love. Christ unites us to
his surrender to his Father's will for the
salvation of the world, allowing us to share
his cross. The apostolic strength of
contemplative prayer springs from that
communion with the passion, death and
resurrection of Christ: AThat is a
fundamental premise of all religious life,
above all of the life of Carmel, to stand
proxy for sinners through voluntary and
joyous suffering, and to cooperate in the
salvation of humankind@.
The life and
some writings of Teresa Benedicta of the
Cross show an obvious influence of Saint
John of the Cross. She was impressed by the
experience of the saint during the Anight@
of his imprisonment in Toledo. The key she
used, based on that experience, to interpret
the Anights@ of Saint John, was that of
abandonment: God allows human beings to
experience the abandonment of Jesus so that
they will give themselves up to Him in the
darkness of faith, as the only way to reach
union with the incomprehensible God.
Edith Stein
also used the image of the Adark night@ to
interpret the historical reality of her
time. What today is usually called
structural sin, she called Anight of sin@,
thus expressing the darkness of an age
marked by the world war and all its
aftermaths. Here, too, we have to give
ourselves up to God; let God be an
incomprehensible God and trust blindly in
his goodness and mercy which go with us in
the darkness: AYthe more an era is engulfed
in the night of sin and estrangement from
God the more it needs souls united to God.
And God does not permit a deficiency. The
greatest figures of prophecy and sanctity
step forth out of the darkest night. But,
for the most part, the formative stream of
the mystical life remains invisible@.
Hand in the
hand with the Lord
21.
At the beginning of his homily at the
beatification of Edith Stein in Cologne, in
1987, John Paul II referred to her as Aa
daughter of the Jewish people, full of
wisdom and strength. After growing up in the
tough school of tradition of the people of
Israel, she stood out for her life of virtue
and abnegation in her own Order, and
demonstrated her heroic spirit on the way to
the concentration camp@. These words
synthesize the passionate life of a woman of
our times, tirelessly seeking the truth, who
knew how to lose over again to win on Gospel
terms: she lost her atheist convictions to
win the light of the faith; she lost her
family and her people to find them in
following Jesus, giving up her life also for
them. In her life as a contemplative
Carmelite, she reached the goal of this
Gospel way, concentrating on the sole
absolute, guided by the Gospel logic of
losing to win. And in the end, she was able
to see mirrored in the words of Jesus the
reality of her own martyrdom: Aanyone who
wants to save his life will lose it; but
anyone who loses his life for my sake, and
for the sake of the Gospel, will save it@
(Mk 8:35).
Throughout
this long journey following in the footsteps
of Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life,
she gave herself up trustingly to the Lord,
placing her hand, as she used to say, in the
hand of the Lord to be guided by his love
along the tough, unknown, rugged paths of
her life and history. In this she
collaborated actively, freely and
responsibly, enlightened by the science of
the cross leading to communion with Him: A...self-fulfilment,
union with God, and laboring for the union
of others with God and for their
self-fulfilment belong inseparably together.
It is the cross, however, that gives access
to all this. And preaching about the cross
will be in vain when it is not an expression
of a life united with the Crucified@.
Men and women
of today with a great nostalgia for God who
anxiously seek the truth in a world of
ideological and religious trends may find an
enlightening answer in the experience and
teachings of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross:
the answer of a woman of our time, who
walked in the night of the drama of our
century, restless and thirsting always for
the truth, until she finally found Christ
and, with Him, the meaning of life and the
peace she had yearned for so long.
Rome, 9
August 1998
Memory of Blessed Teresa Benedicta of the
Cross
Fr. Joseph
Chalmers, O. Carm. Prior General - Fr.
Camilo Maccise, OCD, Superior General
-----
FOR
PERSONAL AND COMMUNITY REFLECTION
1. What do you
consider to be the main teaching of the life
of Edith Stein?
2. Which of
the aspects of Edith Stein's life do you
consider most contemporary in view of the
challenges of the new evangelization? Why?
3. What does
Edith Stein teach us for our religious and
apostolic Carmelite life in the evangelical
dynamic of losing to win?
4. What is the
principal message of Edith Stein for
consecrated woman today in the Church and
society?
5. What can
the experience and doctrine of Edith Stein
contribute to the dialogue between Jews and
Christians and for ecumenical dialogue in
general?
6. How can we
live the Ascience of the cross@ in our
personal and community life, in the light of
the existential testimony of Edith Stein?
|
Index [
] [ 
] 
English [
Italiano] [
Español] [
Français
] [
Deutsch]
++39 (06) 854431 FAX
++39 (06) 85350206
