A Modern “Mother” of the Church

Edith Stein was born into a Jewish family on the Feast of the Atonement, 1982, and died a Catholic Carmelite nun, St. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross, in Auschwitz in 1942. She is an “eminent daughter of Israel and faithful daughter of the Church … [and] a saint to the whole world.” (2) ¹

There is a terrible temptation to look the other way, to pretend that we live in a different world, or to believe that we are different from the people who lived and died in the atrocities of the Second World War. However, in reality, what we have seen is a spread of the mentality that rejects the gift of human personhood. On the one hand, there are marvelous inventions which benefit us, whether it is increased international communication, motorized wheelchairs, or personal computers. But, on the other hand, there is a disease that has spread: an uncritical, unaccountable, and unrestricted belief in technological development. Indeed, that there appears now to be a new “sin” existing where we believe that there can be nothing other than progress, and endlessly exploitative innovation. The human conscience—which is paralyzed under the influence of bureaucratic “distance,” the ideological denial of a common humanity, the goal of a greater good for everyone (except the people whose exploitation make it possible)—needs reawakening. Edith Stein, then, is a witness to a feminism which develops the whole human race, and is an antidote to the dying humanity which we daily witness.

In the following three parts to this article, there is an account of the origin of this reflection in the World Youth Day pilgrimage to Cracow (I); the context of modern feminism (II); and, finally, a number of specific aspects of Edith Stein’s life and work (III).

Edith Stein in the Context of the World Youth Day—Pilgrimage to Cracow (I)

Ordinarily, I would never have read about a woman who had been gassed at Auschwitz. As a young student, having seen pictures taken by the allies who entered the concentration camps at the end of the Second World War, I had no desire to revisit this reality. However, over many years, it has become clear that the mentality that can reduce human beings to mere “biologic” beings is still with us. ² Indeed, biologism is expressed in the mentality that considers itself biologically superior,³ superior to the point of determining the death of those defined as “inferior”. The problem is caused by an inadequate account of the human person. Biological identity is a beginning which needs the complementary analysis which opens to the fuller reality to be investigated. The contradiction inherent in the intelligent explanation of a human, “biological” being is beyond the power of ideologically-driven exponents of biologism. In other words, in elective abortion, in the stark reality of a child being torn from the womb, the perpetrators believe that this child is a “biologic” reality, rather than a psychologically inscribed biological reality that begins the gift of human personhood. Even in view of the inconsistency of tearing out a boy or girl from the womb, there is the wealth of human reality which is expressed in the relationship of a son or daughter, grandchild, niece, or nephew. There is a wealth of human suffering that is brought about at the same time. The reality of bureaucratically programmed deaths, in other words, is still with us: the “processing” of the abortion of a human being suppresses the very humanity he or she has in common with the person whose gift of life has been stolen. The terrible irony remains that the abortionist has received the gift of human life, which he or she then takes from the unborn child through abortion.

However, visiting two memorials to the death of ideological racism has shown me that the mystery of this tragedy, and the triumph of hope, needs to be pondered over and prayed about.⁴ The first memorial was in Berlin, a deliberately bare set of giant shapes like tombstones, inscribed, in one place, with the stark words: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.⁵ Whatever the controversies that surround this work, I could not but admire the blunt statement of truth which constantly calls consciences to be open to the reality of this human suffering, and to all human suffering.

The “second memorial” consisted of the concentration camps themselves: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau. As we processed through these camps, thousands upon thousands of us, passing through on the way to the World Youth Meeting with Pope Francis in Cracow, there was a reverence in the process of assembling, passes being checked, and then winding our way through the various scenes and accounts, identifying what went on in the barbed, but extraordinarily ordinariness of the buildings, and their beautiful surroundings of trees and fields. What I did not expect to discover was hope, hope that expressed itself in the liberation of the camps, and the raw witness to what went on, and then finally came to an end.

As I read about Edith Stein, what encouraged me was the attractiveness of her personality. Indeed, a certain contrast between her patient, cheerful, helpfulness in everyday life, and through the extremity of awaiting execution,⁶ contrasted to my own tendency toward grumpiness, especially towards the end of the day.

It is a truism that nothing comes to exist but for the context in which it comes to exist. Therefore, Edith Stein’s life and work comes to exist in the context of a many-faceted “moment” in modern history. She is a woman who lived the love that completes the truth of nascent feminism: the need to recognize the right of all races’ legitimate self-expression and development; the need to integrate new philosophical insights with perennial truths; the need to improve Jewish-Christian relations;⁷ and, the mystery of a lived “love of the enemy” (cf. Mt 5: 44).⁸ St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross says to us all: “Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive lie.”(6)⁹

Edith Stein in the Context of Modern Feminism (II)
The Identification of Women in the Church

We are used to thinking in terms of the Fathers of the Church, profound Christian thinkers from the early part of the first millennium, and the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). The Fathers of the Church were a wide variety of early Christian writers who reflected on almost every aspect of the Scriptures, and the spiritual life. St. Augustine (354-430 AD), for example, is cited in the document of the Council on the Word of God, showing an early sensitivity to the implications of divine-human authorship: “God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion” (Dei Verbum, 12). In other words, it was preciselyas “true human authors” that God inspired the writers of Scripture (Dei Verbum, 11). Therefore, God spoke to us through the very humanity of human authorship (cf. Lk 1: 1-4). Blessed John Henry Newman (1901-1890) was not actually present at the Council, and yet influenced it in a number of ways, particularly in its reference to the lay vocation:¹⁰ the vocation of being Christian, whether or not it is expressed more specifically in the vocation to marriage, or the priesthood.

Edith Stein (1891-1942), who came along later and was younger than Newman, is no less an influence on the Council, and the modern development of the Church. It was, after all, not until 1970 that Pope Paul VI made St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)¹¹ the first woman Doctor of the Church: a Doctor of Prayer, in a world too often too busy to pray.¹² As a part, then, of the general rapprochement concerning the overlooked contribution of women in the life of the Church, Edith Stein is one of three co-patronesses of Europe, along with three male patrons of Europe.¹³ Thus, I regard Edith Stein as a Mother of the Council, and a Modern Mother of the Church.

At the same time, however, the very existence of female religious orders is itself a witness to the ongoing contribution to the development of the identity of women, which, from the Old through the New Testament, has been expressed in innumerable ways. As such, there is plenty of work to do in a reasonable account of the contribution of women and the positive, if not uncritical assessment, of the mystery of the Church to the identity of women throughout the centuries. Therefore, I am not an avant-garde feminist. Indeed, in the words of Pope Francis, St. John Paul II answered that there is no possibility of a woman’s ordination to the Catholic priesthood. He said by way of explanation:

…the Church is the Bride of Jesus Christ. It is a spousal mystery. And, in the light of this mystery one understands the reason for these two dimensions: the Petrine dimension, namely, episcopal, and the Marian dimension, with all that is the maternity of the Church, but in a more profound sense.¹⁴

In the mystery of salvation, then, the mystery of woman is an expression of the mystery of salvation: that God acts in us; and, in keeping with the iconography of this mystery, Christ chose the ministerial priesthood to be an expression of the vocation of a man.¹⁵Nevertheless, there is a feminism which needs to be identified and developed.¹⁶ Edith Stein was in the forefront of advancing the reasonable development of the identity of a woman.

A Real or an Imagined Injustice to Women?
In the case of the Catholic Church, then, it is widely “claimed” that denying the possibility of the priesthood to women is an injustice. If the priesthood of the Catholic Church is an expression of a specific ministry of Christ Himself, then it is clear that Christ chose men precisely for this purpose; indeed, men were “created” in view of a priestly possibility that was never envisaged for women. Nevertheless, in view of our baptismal consecration as priests, prophets, and kings, there is a priestly work of teaching which is a part of the vocation of women, as Edith says:

The spreading of the faith, since it is included in the priestly vocation to teach, is predominantly the task of men, though women, too, are active in this sphere, especially in the teaching Orders.¹⁷

Where is the injustice if men and women are constituted as dynamically different, yet complementary “expressions” of human personhood? What if, from the beginning, God expressed a radical difference in human personhood, precisely as a vocation to the mutual enrichment of both men and women. What is the radical benefit of womanhood and, indeed, of the contribution of specific women to the life of men, marriage and family, culture, society, the Church and the world? Why, in other words, is a ministry which is exclusively reserved to men, not an injustice to women?¹⁸ There is, in other words, a vocation in virtue of being a woman, which is as indispensable as being a man, but characteristically different. Perhaps, it is a help, therefore, to reflect on this in the light of Edith Stein, an early advocate of genuine feminism.

Edith Stein: the Person (III)
How do I Come to be Writing about Edith Stein?
Writing about Edith Stein, however briefly, is another aspect of the gifts I have been given through the 2016 World Youth Day pilgrimage to Poland. As a member of a team of catechists, who went with more than three hundred young people to the World Youth Day, and met with Pope Francis, my wife and I also attended a pre-pilgrimage meeting. A team of around twenty catechists were called to finalize the preparations for the pilgrimage, which included the possibility of giving a number of catecheses in the course of a nine day journey, from London to Cracow. Although I am much more familiar with the work of St. John Paul II, I was vaguely aware of a philosophical affinity between Karol Wojtyla and Edith Stein. As I was also had a slight familiarity with her connection with the late Pope, I offered to prepare a catechesis on Edith. Reading began and continued, both in the lead up to the pilgrimage, and during it. As the schedule of the pilgrimage suffered from one delay after another, it looked as if the opportunity to give this catechesis would slip through the changes in the timetable. In what I regard as a gift from Edith herself, I eventually gave the catechesis in a Carmelite Monastery in Poland.¹⁹

Edith Stein: Philosophy; Judaism and Feminism; Prayer and Self-Offering
I began reading about Edith Stein, falling in love with her reasonableness, her prayerful discovery of her vocation, and the dialogue she had with her confessors. There was the obvious kinship between her philosophical and theological work, and the papacy of St. John Paul II, and the modern development of the Church’s teaching on the complementarity of men and women, Jewish-Christian dialogue, and the attractive goodness in how she did the good she did. Although there is not an explicit reference to Edith Stein in the opening catecheses, in 1979, of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, it is possible to see the whole cycle as summarized in Edith’s understanding of the opening chapters of Genesis. Edith says:

“We shall find in … [the Word of God] … the traces of the original order of creation, of the fall and of the redemption;”²⁰ and, in the words of St. John Paul II, we see that Christ appeals to the beginning and to the original order that “has not lost its force, although man has lost his primeval innocence.”²¹

On the one hand, then, it could be that both of them had been thinking with the Church²²and understood, albeit in slightly different ways, the enduring reality expressed in the word of God, or, alternatively, it could be that there is a direct dependence of St. John Paul II on Edith Stein, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. However, I cannot prove such a dependence and simply point to it in order to indicate how the path of the Church has passed through both the work of Edith Stein, and John Paul II. It is now necessary to consider some more specific features of Edith’s work.

Philosophy: Edith’s search for the truth led her to phenomenology: “the world as we perceive it does not merely exist … in our subjective perception. [Husserl’s] … pupils saw his philosophy as a return to objects: “back to things”. [His] … phenomenology unwittingly led many of his pupils to the Christian faith.²³ In other words, there is an implicit relationship between “what is” and the Christian faith, in that truth does not contradict truth;²⁴ and, therefore, any philosophy which apprehends what really exists, also leads to the fullness of truth expressed in the mystery of God. At the same time, phenomenology is also an aid to philosophy itself, as it helps to rescue modern thinking from an unaccountable subjectivity.

After deciding to abandon prayer, “it was precisely along the byways of philosophical investigation that grace awaited her: having chosen to undertake the study of phenomenology, she became sensitive to an objective reality which, far from ultimately dissolving in the subject, both precedes the subject, and becomes the measure of subjective knowledge, and thus needs to be examined with rigorous objectivity.”(8)²⁵ In Edith’s own words: phenomenology “turned attention away from the ‘subject’ and toward ‘things’ themselves.”²⁶ Although, it has to be said, in the very recognition of the process of perceiving the object, there is an implicit, if not an explicit, recognition of an objectified subjectivity: a recognition, in other words, of the presence of the perceiving subject as entailed in the turn “toward ‘things’ themselves.” Thus, “Perception again appeared as reception, deriving its laws from objects [and] not, as criticism has it, from determination which imposes its laws on the objects.”²⁷ Without digressing too far from Edith herself, I would add, however, that perception has its own laws: it is the law of a process that provides the opportunity of an active engagement with what actually exists. In other words, perception is both a framework for making possible the active reception of what exists and, at the same time, a process through which there is a dialogue of the whole person with the reality in which we are almost seamlessly immersed.

In the temptation, as it were, of philosophical thought to emphasize one aspect of reality, or another, Edith’s recognition of woman’s capacity for holistic, human development found philosophical expression in a philosophy of wholeness. On the one hand, Edith says: “The female species is characterized by the unity and wholeness of the entire psychosomatic personality and by the harmonious development of the faculties; the male species by the perfecting of individual capacities to obtain record achievements.”²⁸ The unfolding development of each person’s characteristics, whether man or woman, clearly benefits from the reciprocal development of both human wholeness, and specific capacities. On the other hand, the philosophy that attracted Edith, phenomenology, “is an effort to ‘bring back into philosophy everyday things, concrete wholes, the basic experiences of life as they come to us.’”²⁹ In another account of phenomenology, we read that phenomenology “describes with meticulous accuracy the stream of consciousness as it presents itself to the observing mind … the acts performed … for example … in responding to a stimulus, in taking cognizance of a fact, in reaching a decision.”³⁰ Altogether, then, Edith Stein, and later St. John Paul II, took phenomenology’s beginning with the subject’s openness to phenomena of whatever kind, kindling an almost universal openness to what exists, and began to integrate it into a deeper metaphysics of what this reveals about the whole human being, relationships, reality as a whole and, ultimately, religious experience and God: “both [Husserl and St. Thomas Aquinas] considered philosophy to be an exact science that starts with the knowledge of reality through the senses and develops in intellectual activity.”³¹

Clearly, however, intellectual activity runs throughout: from “the knowledge of reality through the senses” to the development of it through “intellectual activity’.” In a certain sense, then, it is necessary to define the intellectual activity: “Phenomenology … taught that essences could be intuitively and immediately known without the formal apparatus of scientific method or psychological process.”³² An essence is what is definable. Therefore, phenomenology concerns itself with an “immediate” apprehension with what exists, whether what exists is an “idea,” an object or a relationship between people, or all kinds of variations of these three possibilities. In other words, an actual piece of paper is “intuitively and immediately known” as a non-living product of the labor of a person, the different kinds of which can be observed or explored with cutting, drawing, or wrapping activities, the materials and processes through which it can be made can be researched; and, ultimately, the actual piece of paper can be identified as per its origin, generally or more particularly, with respect to who bought it, and for how much. In other words, the object itself, “paper,” implies a specifically knowable identity, amidst a multitude of relationships, and potential uses. This whole process implies all the psychological, sociological, philosophical, scientific, and circumstantial analyses that are, in effect, coextensive with the “intuitive” definition of what exists in a particular instance and, at the same time, entails all the ramifications for the investigating subject, and the whole environment of which it is a “whole” within the “whole.”

Developing this interrelationship between an adequate subjectivity, and a foundational understanding of the structure of being, was one of the primary concerns of St. John Paul II. In other words, Edith’s work was instrumental in the modern enrichment of the structure of human personhood, with a more adequate account of human subjectivity, with all its unique and universal characteristics.

Judaism and feminism: In the context of anti-Semitism, which seemed to be so prevalent in what was referred to as a country with a Christian government,³³ Edith’s conversion to Catholicism was also a point of re-entry into the heritage of faith which she had abandoned when she had decided to give up prayer, although she later said that: “My longing for truth was a prayer in itself.”³⁴ Edith did not disown her Jewish heritage and, indeed, it helped her in order to enter into the cross which was inseparable from her vocation.³⁵

Edith’s pursuit of truth had culminated in the discovery that “Truth is a person, the person of Jesus [Christ];”³⁶ and, at the same time, Edith followed St. Teresa of Avila into the Catholic Church, and the Carmelite order. Albeit Edith’s entry into Carmel had to wait until anti-Semitism had closed all other possibilities of work to her,³⁷ and both she, and her confessor, agreed that it was the providential moment for her to enter Carmel.³⁸ Edith’s entry into Carmel, however, was not to be without the taint of a slight anti-Semitism in the course of her reception into the convent.³⁹ More generally, however, Edith’s account of Life in a Jewish Family was to provide a real answer to the propaganda’s “horrendous caricature”⁴⁰ of Jewish people: “to write down what I, child of a Jewish family, had learned about the Jewish people since such knowledge is so rarely found in outsiders.”⁴¹ In the course of the dialogue between Jews and Catholics, it is almost as if the life of Edith Stein “is” a powerful catalyst of this development.⁴² In the words of St. John Paul II: “May her witness constantly strengthen the bridge of mutual understanding between Jews and Christians.”(8)⁴³ Furthermore, there is no doubt that her Jewish background informed her feminism and, indeed, is almost a modern forerunner to it: “By the time [Edith’s mother] was eight, she was so diligent and capable that her parents could send her to help out-of-town relatives in an emergency.”⁴⁴ In other words, although in this instance in a very “traditional” way, Edith’s mother was both trained to be capable and, indeed, chose to be capable at a very early age;⁴⁵ and, on the death of her husband, Edith’s mother was to show herself a very able businesswoman,⁴⁶ providing for the education of two very able daughters.⁴⁷

Prayer and self-offering: It was the vocation of Esther, the Jewish Queen, who interceded for the salvation of her people with King Ahasuerus,⁴⁸ which increasingly expressed the depth of Edith’s vocation—a vocation which entailed that mystery of offering her death for both persecutors, and persecuted.⁴⁹ It is probably one of the deepest mysteries of the divine-human dimensions of the Christian Faith that the free act in which evil is done is the occasion through which God brings about good. Joseph, a prophetic dreamer, who had been sold into slavery by his brothers, and had yet risen to be Pharaoh’s right hand man, was thus able to help his family, and the whole region in a time of famine. On being reconciled with his brothers, he explained to them that :”…you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.”(Gn 50: 20) It is unavoidable, therefore, that we think of the crucifixion: that God intended for good what was clearly the dreadful death of the Son of God. In this way, therefore, Edith entered into the mystery announced, as it were, by her birth on the Jewish feast of the Atonement—the feast day of reconciliation between God and man.⁵⁰

In the dialogue between Edith Stein and Jesus Christ, we can see that Edith recognizes that her vocation is a participation in the reconciling⁵¹ self-offering of Christ. At the same time Edith recognized that Christian marriage entailed an inseparable, reciprocal self-offering: “I believe that even most of the ‘happy’ marriages are, more often than not, at least in part a martyrdom.”⁵² Edith wishes to live and die for the Church, for the concerns of Jesus and Mary, for the Order of Carmel. Then, there are the peoples to which she belongs: the communities of Cologne and Echt, the Jews and Germans, her family, friends, and acquaintances. She is offering herself for all of these.⁵³ Edith Stein’s answer to the question of who can atone for the “oppressed and the oppressors” was that is was the victims, “willingly carrying their sufferings, who could atone.”⁵⁴ Edith was born “in 1891, on the (Jewish feast day of the) Day of Atonement”⁵⁵ and died in Auschwitz in 1942⁵⁶.

Conclusion
No period of history is an isolated event—either in itself, or in terms of the relationship between one idea and another—and, ultimately, ideas and programs impact people, either by bringing communion and communication, or fracturing society, and imperiling the lives of people. Our times are very much an outcome of the mentality which is, in a certain sense, radically incapable of recognizing the equality of all human beings in the gift of human personhood. Just as the “structure of energy” is manifest in the capabilities of matter and its states—whether solid, liquid or gas—so the visible more generally communicates the invisible. And, as such, the psychological is inherent in the embryological development of the human person. The relationship of mother and father to their child is already as “psychologically existent” as it is physiologically drawn upon in conception.

What we witness, however, in the life of Edith Stein, is that the last word of human development goes to the Christian mystery of the “gift of self”—the reciprocal gift of self between Edith Stein and Jesus Christ. Even if in the course of her life she espoused all the good developments of a true, realistic type of feminism—unfolding profound philosophical and personal gifts—the “leaven” of Edith’s life goes on unfolding in the most influential way through the very Jewish-Christian identity that expresses the deepest contours of the path of life.

I am personally grateful, then, for the opportunity to begin to draw on her participation in the dialogue of our times. And, in so far as I have been able, I hope this article encourages others to turn to this modern Mother of the Church.

1. Homily of John Paul II for the Canonization of Edith Stein, Sunday, 1998, w2.vatican.va/content/john-paulii/en/homilies/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_11101998_stein.html. ↩
2. Cf. Evelyne Shuster, “Fifty Years Later: The Significance of the Nuremberg Code”, New England Journal of Medicine, 1997; 337: 1436-1440: nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199711133372006 (Source Information: From the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University and Woodland Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19104) at the end of this excerpt she cited the following reference, at footnote 12: ‘Complete transcript of the Nuremberg Medical Trial: United States v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case 1). Washington, D.C.: National Archives, November 21, 1946–August 20, 1947. (Microfilm publication no. M887)’. ↩
3. “Übermensch”: ‘The term Übermensch was used frequently by Hitler and the Nazi regime to describe their idea of a biologically superior Aryan or Germanic master race’ (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cbermensch). ↩
4. During the World Youth Day pilgrimage to Cracow, 22^nd July to 3^rd August, 2016. ↩
5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Murdered_Jews_of_Europe ↩
6. Cf. Joanne Mosley, Edith Stein: Woman of Prayer, Leominster: Gracewing, 2004, p. 14, quoting from Posselt, Sister Teresia de Spiritu Sancto, Edith Stein, pp. 54-55. ↩
7. Carmen Hernandez (1930-2016), the recently deceased co-founder of the Neocatechumenal Way, has likewise contributed significantly to the enrichment of a Catholic understanding of the Paschal Mystery through a life-long assimilation of a positive dialogue with Judaism. Moreover, many young women ‘said it was thanks to Carmen they found pride in being a woman” (catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/07/20/carmen-hernandez-co-founder-of-neocatechumenal-way-dies/). Carmen is, possibly, yet another Modern Mother of the Church. ↩
8. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 50: Edith’s ‘love went out to both the oppressed and the oppressors.’ ↩
9. Homily of John Paul II for the Canonization of Edith Stein, Sunday, 11 October, 1998. ↩
10. americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1946: ‘Blessed John Henry Newman’ (1801-1890). ↩
11. Cf. Pope Benedict XVI, 2011: w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110202.html ↩
12. Cf. ctkcc.net/carmelite-corner/pope-paul-vi-on-st-teresa-of-jesus-as-doctor-of-the-church/ ↩
13. Cf. w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_01101999_co-patronesses-europe.html ↩
14. November 2^nd, 2016, Pope Francis’s Interview on Return from Sweden: zenit.org/articles/full-translation-popes-in-flight-press-conference-on-return-from-sweden/. ↩
15. In her article, “The pitfalls of a gendered theology of church”, Natalia Imperatori-Lee, says: ‘this complementarity {of masculine priesthood and feminine Church} also casts the laity in the Marian role and the clergy and hierarchy in the Petrine office. This is potentially problematic, as it rests on the passivity and submission of the “Marian” principle (the laity) to the Petrine (the clergy)’ (americamagazine.org/content/all-things/its-not-complement). But the problem with Imperatori-Lee’s point is that it overlooks the following: that it is the whole Church, expressing the mystery of mankind before God, “who” stands to God as feminine in virtue of the necessity that God acts in us for the sake of our salvation: ‘apart from me you can do nothing’ (Jn 15: 5). ↩
16. Cf. St. John Paul II, Letter to Women. ↩
17. Writings of Edith Stein, selected, translated and introduced by Hilda Graef, London: Peter Owen Ltd., 1956: pp. 161-173, are an extract from “The Ethos of Women’s Professions”; and, therefore, the quotation comes from p. 168 of this version. ↩
18. There is clearly a ministry for women in that, as a woman Bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek was by far the more able preacher at an event at Tewkesbury Abbey (2016): the conferring of various levels of the Bishop’s Award in the Joint Anglican and Catholic Academy of All Saints. In the strict sense of being a Bishop, however, the ministry is “constitutionally” different in an Anglican communion to what it is in a Catholic communion. Nevertheless, as I say, Bishop Treweek spoke in a memorably attractive way about the Christian life and how it is lived. She said that the cross, for example, she wore around her neck was made of bits of war machinery: a fitting “modernization” of the cross of Christ transforming an instrument of torture into the vehicle of our salvation. ↩
19. To over three hundred pilgrims at the Discalced Carmelite Monastery, Czerna 79, Czerna 32-065, Poland (Thursday, 28^th July, 2016). ↩
20. P. 112 of the Writings of Edith Stein, selected, translated and introduced by Hilda Graef, pp. 101-125, “The Vocation of Man and Woman”. ↩
21. John Paul II, Man Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Translation, Introduction, and Index by Michael Waldstein, Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006, p. 141: excerpt from the Catechesis, “Second Account of the Creation of Man”, September 19, 1979, n. 4. ↩
22. A free translation of the adage, sentire cum ecclesia. ↩
23. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Edith Stein (1891-1942): vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_19981011_edith_stein_en.html ↩
24. Vatican Council I, Dei Filius. ↩
25. w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_01101999_co-patronesses-europe.html ↩
26. Edith Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, Volume One of The Collected Works, translated by Josephine Koeppel, OCD, Washington: ICS Publications, 1986, p. 250. ↩
27. Edith Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, p. 250. ↩
28. Writings of Edith Stein, selected, translated and introduced by Hilda Graef: pp. 142-143 are an extract from “Problems of Women’s Education”. ↩
29. From Michael Novak, “John Paul II: Christian Philosopher,” America 177: 12 (October 25, 1997), p. 12, quoted in George Weigel’s, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, New York: Cliff Street Books, 1999, p. 127. ↩
30. Writings of Edith Stein, selected, translated and introduced by Hilda Graef: Introduction, p. 18. ↩
31. Fr. Raimondo Spiazzi, OP, “Edith Stein: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross”, ewtn.com/library/Theology/EDITHST.HTM. ↩
32. John C. Caiazza, “The Social Teaching of John Paul II”, hprweb.com/2014/01/the-social-teaching-of-john-paul-ii/ ↩
33. Cf. The words from Edith Stein’s letter to Pope Pius XI in 1933 are: ‘Everything that happened and continues to happen on a daily basis originates with a government that calls itself “Christian”’ (p. 226 of Susanne Batzdorff’s, Aunt Edith: The Jewish Heritage of a Catholic Saint, Springfield, Illinois: Templegate Publishers, second edition, 2003). ↩
34. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 64. ↩
35. Mosley, Edith Stein, pp. 46-47. ↩
36. Mosley, Edith Stein, pp. 14, but also 16. ↩
37. Mosley, Edith Stein, pp. 27-28. ↩
38. Cf. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. ↩
39. Cf. Mosley, Edith Stein, pp. 30 and 42; however, whether this was simply anti-Semitism or the fear that Edith’s Jewish background would endanger them all in an increasingly anti-Semitic climate, or both, is not clear. As regards the latter, it emerges as Edith’s own concern as anti-Semitism increases: ‘She was putting the community {at Cologne} at risk by her mere presence’ (p. 39). ↩
40. Edith Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, p. 23. ↩
41. Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, p. 23. ↩
42. Cf. Batzdorff’s, Aunt Edith, pp. 196-211: Chapter 15: In the Spirit of Catholic-Jewish Understanding. ↩
43. Homily of John Paul II for the Canonization of Edith Stein. ↩
44. Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, p. 37. ↩
45. Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, p. 38. ↩
46. Cf. Batzdorff’s, Aunt Edith, p. 75. ↩
47. Cf. Batzdorff’s, Aunt Edith, pp. 102-110. ↩
48. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 97. ↩
49. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 97. ↩
50. Mosley, Edith Stein, pp. 50-51. ↩
51. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 51. ↩
52. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 82, quoting from: Die Frau: Fragestellungen und Reflexionen, Freiburg, Basle and Vienna: Herder, 2000, p. 50. ↩
53. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 46-47. ↩
54. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 50. ↩
55. Mosley, Edith Stein, p. 50.

Saint Edith Stein

Footsteps to Truth

SEPTEMBER 11, 2019 BY PETER M. COLLINS

“Whoever seeks the truth is seeking God.”
– Saint Edith Stein, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

While the general story of Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross [1891–1942]) might be well known, her kind of concern for truth in all its depths and dimensions requires serious attention. “Truth” to her, from just prior to the initiation of her philosophical studies in 1913 until her conversion to Catholicism on January 1, 1922, referred fundamentally to an objective reality outside of the mind which can be known by the mind. She desired to know clearly and with certitude answers to the most fundamental questions of life: Who am I? What is my origin? Where ought I to be going? How do I get there? What is really real?

Edith Stein never gave up her search for this kind of truth by means of natural reason. However, recognizing the need for a means to truth beyond unaided human reason, she was led to Christianity and eventually to Catholicism (and the Carmelites). When she exclaimed at the conclusion of her reading of the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, “That is the truth,” she was signifying by “truth” not merely an ultimate, permanent reality, but also a loving relationship with Truth, a personal Supreme Being known as Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Since this Truth was also the Way and the Life, Edith lived the need to love all human persons whom she encountered: family, students, colleagues, and friends, as well as her Carmelite sisters after her entry into the monastery of Cologne in 1933.

Edith Stein discovered in her life as a lay Catholic and as a professed religious Catholic the clear and certain answers to the foundational questions of life which she had sought through natural reason alone many years earlier. She learned that the Catholic faith does not in any way suppress reason, but builds upon it and expands its scope. She learned that there is a reality known as Christian philosophy. She learned that only awareness of a personal Ultimate Reality whom one can know and love provides the kind of meaningful direction and hope in life which is conducive to authentic human happiness. If she were alive somewhere in Western culture today, she could describe to her students and audiences how and why a relativistic-secularist life is rudderless, failing to recognize its origin and its destiny, and failing to respect human life. She learned that this creates an environment which potentially terrorizes all of humanity. Of course, she confronted this kind of world long before her death at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.

Edith Stein’s intensive search for truth led her to philosophy, then to the realization of a means to truth beyond human reason, and eventually to Christianity en route to Catholicism. However, her future as an outstanding philosopher and a saint in the Catholic Church was quite unpredictable when in 1906 at the age of fifteen she dropped out of high school and discontinued her prayer life. After her strict (and obviously wise) mother approved her request for “a break from school,” Edith spent the next year living with her oldest sister and husband and their three children. But she returned to school and in 1911 entered the University of Breslau (which was then in Germany and is now in Poland) to study German history. She remained a student there until transferring to the University of Gottingen in 1913; this became the location of what might be called the first of her three “conversions.”

Before considering Edith’s paths to truth, attention will be turned to some clarification of what, in fact, she was seeking. It appears questionable whether at this time she is most accurately to be considered an atheist, an agnostic, or just a person indifferent to religion.¹ In any case, she was not actually practicing the Jewish faith in which she had been raised. Nonetheless, it is said that she had an unquenchable thirst for truth. Obviously, the term “truth” conveys multiple meanings. What was hers? We can identify it most accurately as a perfectly clear and absolutely certain and realistic basis for responding to the most fundamental questions of human living: personal identity (who am I?), the origin of my life (where did I come from?), the proper destiny of my life (how do I get there?), and the nature of reality in general (what is really real?).

Especially to be noticed in Edith Stein’s search for truth is her quest for an objective reality outside her own mind yet knowable by the human mind. This is important, especially in the twenty-first century in Western culture, which has become what Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has called “relativistic secularism.” This signifies the presumption that there is no God, and that the only certain principle is that all truth and good are relative to what individual persons think, feel, and decide. That is, since there is no Supreme Being, human beings represent the crest of earthly existence and are responsible for creating what is true, good, and beautiful — rather than discovering what is outside the mind, and conforming one’s thoughts and living in accord with this reality. Only in discovering what is real outside the mind did Edith have confidence that she could find a basis for directing her thoughts and actions.

This was the mindset of Edith Stein during her college years that led her to the study of phenomenology under the guidance of Edmund Husserl, a professor of philosophy at the University of Gottingen and the founder of the modern phenomenological movement. In fact, she eventually earned a doctoral degree and served as an assistant to Husserl, whose original goal by means of his phenomenological method was “‘to clarify and thereby find the ultimate basis of all knowledge,’”² by means of discovering the essences of things (an essence being that which makes a thing to be the kind of thing that it is). This fit Edith’s personal agenda and explains her “conversion” to philosophy at this early stage in her life. However, disappointment in Husserl soon became prevalent among his graduate students, including Edith, when the “Master” (as he was called) turned toward idealism. That is, for various reasons, Husserl came to believe and began to teach that truth is found within the human mind rather than in things outside of the mind. The emphasis now was on the subjectivity of truth, signifying an incapability of the mind by means of the phenomenological method to know the relationship between the ideas in the mind and things outside the mind.³

Edith Stein’s disillusionment with Husserl’s subjective turn was soon accompanied by disappointment which extended to philosophy, in general. That is, she began to wonder whether — and to believe that — natural reason is simply incapable of leading a person to what is ultimately (finally) true and real with the kind of certitude for which she longed. This moved her toward a second conversion in her search for truth in view of her principle that something beyond natural reason is required for attaining the kinds of answers to the kinds of questions which she sought. This “something” had to be religious faith. But what religion and what kind of faith was needed?⁴

Edith had by this time encountered the philosophy professor Max Scheler, who was then a Catholic, but whose Catholicism, as such, seemed not to resonate with her. Nonetheless, she says that he shook “‘the barriers of rationalistic prejudices’ as she encountered the world of [religious] faith.” She began to embrace the Christian faith under the influence of Scheler’s lectures,⁵ a direction qualitatively enhanced soon by a visit with the widow of another philosophy professor, Adolf Reinach. He had been killed in battle during World War I in November, 1917. His widow Anne, a Christian, invited Edith to visit her; the latter was astounded by her courage, associating it with the Cross of Christ. In Edith’s own words, “‘This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine strength that it inspires in those who bear it. For the first time I saw before my 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 radiated before me: Christ in the mystery of the Cross.’”⁶

Edith’s turn to Christianity led to a third major conversion, this on a visit to the home of fellow philosopher, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, who, with her husband, ran a large fruit farm and invited Edith to stay at their home while they were on vacation. Browsing in Hedwig’s substantial library one evening, Edith (in her own words) “‘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 until I reached the end. As I closed the book, I said, That is the truth.’” The practical effect was evident immediately; after reading most of the night, Edith went out the next morning and bought a Catholic catechism and a missal. After studying them thoroughly, she attended Mass at a Catholic church. After Mass, she approached the priest and requested that he baptize her. He probably explained that the process didn’t work quite that way. But Edith persisted, requesting that he test her knowledge. He did so and baptized her on January 1, 1922. She was confirmed on February 2 in Speyer.⁷

A very notable feature of Edith Stein’s conversion to Catholicism is directly connected to the manner in which it occurred: the reading of the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. MacIntyre summarizes the nature of this two-fold conversion: “What Stein decided immediately in responding to Teresa’s autobiography was to follow that path that Teresa had described; that is, the Carmelite path. And, because a Carmelite is only within the Catholic Church, her decision was from the outset both to become a Catholic and to become a Carmelite.”⁸ However, the latter was delayed — from 1921 to 1933, in fact. There are two reasons: her mother’s seriously negative response to Edith’s becoming a Catholic and Edith’s fear for her health, and the recommendations of two consecutive spiritual directors.⁹ Instead of a life with the Carmelites, Edith became a professional teacher and lecturer. Some years earlier she had failed to obtain a university professorship, not for a lack of qualifications but because of gender bias: men only. However, she was welcomed in 1927 to the faculty of a girls’ high school (and teacher education institute) conducted by the Dominican nuns of Magdalena in Speyer. Although she was not a nun, “she managed to mimic a monastic life years before her entrance into Carmel.” She took “private vows” and lived in a room adjacent to the nuns’ quarters, attended daily Mass, and prayed the Divine Office and meditated with the nuns.¹⁰

During these years (1923–31) of teaching and lecturing throughout Europe, Edith met the Jesuit Father Erich Pryzwara, who asked her to translate some letters of Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–90) and The Disputed Questions on Truth by St. Thomas Aquinas. The latter, in particular, reawakened her former commitment to philosophy. In conjunction with this study and translation of St. Thomas, she recognized “‘that God can be served through scholarship;’” that religious faith serves as a path to truth; and that faith expands the scope of philosophy. Concerning the last point, she became critically aware that “there are realms of truth from which philosophy must remain excluded apart from faith.” That is, religious faith provides issues about which one can (and a Christian should) philosophize — thus, an entrance into the realm of “Christian philosophy.” In becoming aware of the interrelationships between phenomenology and the thought of Aquinas, she became increasingly appreciative of the manner in which theology broadened the scope of philosophy — and the horizon for her reach for truth.¹¹

As noted above, Edith Stein’s personal quest for the truth had led her to the study of philosophy that consisted of a search for an objective reality outside the mind, yet knowable by the mind. Her theoretical interest in this mode of truth was matched by her practical interest: she wished to know the real meaning of human living and how to attain it. A goal was necessary, and it could not be located without an awareness of what is really real: being, not created by the human mind, but existing outside the mind and independently of it. The path of her search had taken her from philosophy to the need for faith, to Christianity, to Catholicism. She now was certain, not only of the existence of a Supreme Being, but of a personal God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Just as an introduction to theology had broadened her view of philosophy and philosophical pursuits, so had this experience and knowledge broadened her understanding of “truth.” Her search for the truth characteristic of her earlier endeavors must now be continued, but expanded. How? A key to her new appreciation is exemplified in her own words: “‘Whoever seeks the truth is seeking God, whether consciously or unconsciously,’” and, since God is Love as well as Truth, all truth must be fused with love.

The union of truth and love in the context of the Catholic life was emphasized by Pope John Paul II at the Mass of Canonization for Edith Stein at the Vatican on October 11, 1998: “ʻTruth and love need each other. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is a witness to this. [She] says to us all: Do not accept anything as truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive life.’”¹² Edith herself states clearly the practical implication of her newly extended and deepened vision of truth, one for which philosophy had initially paved the way: “‘If God is within us and if God is love, it cannot be otherwise than that we love our brothers and sisters. Therefore our love of human beings is the measure of our love of God. For the Christian, there is no such thing as a stranger. At any time it is our neighbor who stands before us, the one who needs us the most . . . ’”¹³ While remaining fully aware of a philosophical view of truth as abstract (and empirical) knowledge, Edith embraced and exemplified most courageously the truth of love that is relationship, particularly “‘in mystical friendship with God and with him whom God had sent, Jesus Christ.’”¹⁴

Edith Stein left the school of the Dominican nuns in Speyer in 1931, but continued her teaching career in 1932, this time at the German Institute for Scientific Pedagogy in Munster. This opportunity to work in teacher education brought her closer to the area of philosophy of education, an area in which she contributed significantly from a classical appreciation of the field. However, the appointment at Munster would last only one year due to a government decree under the Nazi regime in April, 1933.¹⁵ Plaudits for her efforts as a teacher and public lecturer from 1923–33 are extraordinary. It seems worth pausing here to reflect very briefly on what contributed to her effectiveness in addition to her clarity of mind and expression, and her concern for the well-being of her students and all persons. That intangible factor is her very being. One of her former students from the Dominican School in Speyer puts it very succinctly: “‘none of us has forgotten the magic of her personality. We saw her every day at Mass up front in the chapel on her kneeler, and we began to get an inkling of what it means to bring faith and conduct into perfect harmony. To us at that critical age [17] she provided an example simply by her bearing . . . she was a still and silent person who led us only by what she was’” (emphasis added).¹⁶ This might remind us of the age-old principle that we influence people more by what we do than by what we say, and more by who we are than by what we do. In any case, Edith Stein taught through her words, her life, and her being.

As noticed, it seems clear enough that Edith’s call from God to become a Catholic and a Carmelite were virtually simultaneous. The circumstances of her conversion (through the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila) and her mode of life between her baptism on January 1, 1922, and her entrance into the Carmelite monastery at Cologne on October 14, 1933, support this contention. So do her own words in 1933: “For almost twelve years, Carmel had been my goal. . . . When on New Year’s Day 1922, I received the Sacrament of Baptism, I thought that this was merely the preparation for entering the Order.” She adds that “Lately this waiting had become very hard for me.” A few days following her arrival at the Cologne Carmel she admitted that she was “at the place where for the longest time I felt I belonged.” She experienced great joy in penetrating “more deeply into the spirit of the Order in accordance with the counsel of its holy Foundress to seek nothing in the cloister but God alone and the unreserved submission to His will.”¹⁷

Due to pressure from the Nazis, who were attacking Jews and their friends, and burning synagogues and destroying homes, Edith moved from the Carmel in Cologne to the one in Echt, Holland, on December 31, 1938. She immediately began learning Dutch (which became the seventh language which she spoke), and continued her research and writing. However, the end was near at hand when on July 26, 1942, a pastoral letter of the Dutch bishops condemning the deportation of Jews was read from the pulpits in Dutch Catholic churches. The result occurred quickly: the arrest of all Catholics of Jewish descent. Edith Stein and her sister Rosa (a lay assistant at the convent) were taken away from the Carmel in Echt, Holland, on August 2, 1942, at 5:00 PM. Edith’s calm demeanor and faithful resignation are clear. In a letter dated September, 1941, she wrote, “‘Not mine, but your will be done.’” Her last words remembered by those present at her departure are addressed to Rosa: “Come let us go for our people.” While the “details of Edith’s death will never be known,” it appears somewhat certain that she was murdered by the Nazis after arriving at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.¹⁸

In conclusion, it becomes clear that Christ’s proclamation that “The Truth will set you free” characterizes Edith Stein’s whole adult life and her death. Truth became for her not only an objective reality to be sought as a guide to living happily in accord with her philosophy, but also a relationship of love of all human beings in accord with her love of the Truth, Jesus Christ Himself. From her philosophical studies she learned a great deal about the world and human living, but also that natural reason was not sufficient to satisfy her craving for clear and certain answers to the ultimate meaning of life. Her encounter with St. Thomas Aquinas, in particular, led her to an appreciation of something called “Christian philosophy,” and the reality of Truth presented in Scripture and the Catholic Tradition.

Little or nothing has been said explicitly concerning Edith’s humility, but a few sentences of her own underline its centrality in her life and death. As a Catholic, Edith exercised great devotion to the Blessed Virgin and certainly was aware of her humility, which one can see reflected in these statements. For example, on the Feast of Epiphany on January 6, 1941, while sensing the beginning of the end, she wrote that “‘The Divine Child offers us his hand to renew our bridal bond. Let us hurry to clasp his hand. The Lord is my light and salvation — of whom shall I be afraid?’”¹⁹ Again, “‘Who surrenders unconditionally to the Lord will be chosen by him as an instrument for building his Kingdom.’”²⁰ Finally, “‘I am only a tool of the Lord. I would like to lead to him anyone who comes to me.’”²¹ Edith Stein’s humble path from philosophy to Christianity to Catholicism led her from a conception of truth to a meeting with the Truth, the Way, and the Life.

Summary

Edith Stein/St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (1891–1942) at the age of fifteen dropped out of high school and discontinued her prayer life. However, this was not a harbinger of her future. Born into a Jewish family with a strictly religious mother in Breslau, Germany (now a part of Poland), in 1891, Edith very early in life developed a thirst for the truth. She felt a need for a clear and certain grasp of objective reality as a guide to self-identity, and a knowledge of her origin and destiny. No longer influenced by her Jewish heritage in her early twenties, she turned to philosophy at the University of Gottingen under the tutelage of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. She excelled in philosophy, completing a doctoral degree with highest honors in 1916, and becoming Husserl’s assistant. However, Edith became disillusioned concerning philosophy as a means to her search for truth for two reasons: Husserl’s turn to idealism and, more generally, her (accurate) perception that natural reason alone was insufficient for her purposes. She began to recognize the need for Christian faith through her encounters with Professor Max Scheler and Anne Reinach, the wife of a philosophy professor who had been killed in World War I in 1917. Her eventual conversion to Catholicism occurred through a reading of the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila — she determined that “That is the truth,” spurring a decision to become a Catholic . . . and a Carmelite.

Edith’s appreciation of truth expanded from a notion of objective reality (which she continued to pursue) to a need for loving relationships, especially with the Truth, who was also the Way and the Life, Christ Himself. However, out of concern for her mother (who was devastated by her conversion) and in deference to consecutive spiritual advisors, she delayed seeking immediate entrance into the Carmelites. Instead, but living the life of a nun in many ways, she taught from 1923–31 at a girls’ high school conducted by the Dominican nuns of St. Magdalena in Speyer, and from 1932–33 at the German Institute for Scientific Pedagogy at Munster in Germany. Due to pressure from the Nazis, she was forced to leave this position, which became the occasion for her entrance into the Carmelite monastery of Cologne in October, 1933. Again, because of Nazi persecution of Jews, she transferred to the Carmel in Echt, Netherlands, in December, 1938. Edith continued her writing in Echt, having previously encountered writings of John Henry Newman and St. Thomas Aquinas. While never relinquishing her attention to the phenomenological method of reflection, she developed a notion of Christian philosophy and also wrote in the area of mystical theology, especially concerning St. John of the Cross. However, due to Nazi reprisal to a pastoral letter of Dutch bishops concerning the deportation of Jews, she was removed from Echt on August 2, 1942, and died in Auschwitz on August 9 of that year. Edith Stein was beatified in 1987, canonized in 1998, and made a co-patroness of Europe in 1999 by Pope St. John Paul II.

1. Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda, Edith Stein: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2001), 49–52. ↩
2. Sarah Borden, Edith Stein, Outstanding Christian Thinkers Series (London, New York: Continuum, 2003), 21. ↩
3. See Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 60–64; Borden, Stein, 20–27; Sr. Teresia Renalta Posselt, OCD, Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 2005), 31–34; Waltraud Herbstrith, OCD, Edith Stein: A Biography, trans. Fr. Bernard Bonowitz, OCSO (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992; 2nd English ed.), 33–45; Alasdair MacIntyre, Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913-1922 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publications Inc., 2006), 63–67; Antonio Calcagno, The Philosophy of Edith Stein (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2007), 7–11; Hilda C. Graef, The Scholar and the Cross: The Life and Work of Edith Stein (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1955), 11–16, 23ff. ↩
4. Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 58; Herbstrith, Biography, 46. ↩
5. Dianne Marie Traflet, Saint Edith Stein: A Spiritual Portrait (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2008), 36; Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 64–65; Herbstrith, Biography, 46–48. ↩
6. Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 53–60; see also Traflet, Spiritual Portrait, 40–46; Herbstrith, Biography, 48–51; Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 75. ↩
7. Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 63–65; see also Traflet, Spiritual Portrait, 17, 41–42; Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 80. ↩
8. MacIntyre, Philosophical Prologue, 168. ↩
9. Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 65; Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 82–83; Traflet, Spiritual Portrait, 45–48; Graef, Scholar and Cross, 39. ↩
10. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 84; Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 65–73; Graef, Scholar and Cross, 39–46. ↩
11. Herbstrith, Biography, 82–87; Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 87–88. ↩
12. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 59–60. ↩
13. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 132–33. ↩
14. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 80. ↩
15. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 99, 108; Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 113, 114; Herbstrith, Biography, 106–14. ↩
16. Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 69. ↩
17. Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 118, 120, 135, 159. ↩
18. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 132, 137–38, 145–53, 156; Posselt, Life of a Philosopher, 202–10. ↩
19. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 167. ↩
20. Scaperlanda, St. Teresa Benedicta, 133. ↩
21. Traflet, Spiritual Portrait, 52. ↩

Read the source: https://www.hprweb.com/2019/09/saint-edith-stein/

About Peter M. Collins
The teaching and research career of Peter M. Collins has been focused upon philosophy and education. For thirty-two years he was full-time faculty at Marquette University; he has also taught and lectured in other universities in the U.S. (including Guam), Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan. In addition to traditional lay students, he has taught priests, religious, and seminarians. The author of two books, his articles and reviews have appeared in about thirty different scholarly journals published across the globe. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for the History of Philosophy and Pedagogy in Rockville, MA.