Edith Stein - an example for a modern heroic Christian virtue

Friday of the Eighteenth week in Ordinary Time         9 August 2013
St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), co-patron of Europe (1891-1942)


Edith Stein & the call of the philosophical life

Edith Stein is an example of what it means to be fully human. Study her life and there you will find someone who sought the truth and let the truth speak to her, finally giving witness to the truth as a martyr for Christ at Auschwitz.  The reason she is a saint is because her life was centred on one person: Jesus. But, in her particular vocation as a philosopher/theologian, she cultivated a receptive soul so as to let Christ and the manifold manifestations of himself in all things and persons lure her into communion with the real. Her love for wisdom led her beyond reason into the realm of faith. While many of her colleagues –  especially Husserl and Heidegger, remembered as some of the most important philosophers of the 20th century –made little room for faith in their thinking, Stein, trying to take the insights of phenomenology so as to incorporate them into Thomism, saw faith and reason as mutually dependent. Faith is needed to show reason its limits and vice versa. While admiration should be given to Stein because of her fearlessness in living out the demands of truth, more attention should be paid to her philosophical work and the importance she gives to friendship as the proper context for living a philosophical life.

Pope John Paul II beatified Edith Stein in Cologne cathedral in 1987 and canonized her on 11 October 1998.  She was born and bred in a Jewish family, becoming a Roman Catholic at the age of 31. She was also a leading German scholar and philosopher, but she gave up that career in order to become a Carmelite nun, Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.   She never denied her Jewish roots, however.   In 1933 she petitioned Pope Pius XI to write an encyclical in defense of the Jews. Because of the political factions in the Nazi Germany in the thirties, she was sent to the Carmelite Monastery at Echt, Holland.  But when the Nazis conquered Holland, Edith Stein was arrested, and, with her sister Rose, was sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Edith died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of fifty-one. Out of the unspeakable human suffering, a saint blossomed.  Even though her life was snuffed out, her memory stands as a light undimmed in the midst of evil.  Most of those people recognized as Saints by the Church were also martyrs.

Deut 4:32-40.

Moses said to the people: "Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created man upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of?
Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?
Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
All this you were allowed to see that you might know the LORD is God and there is no other.
Out of the heavens he let you hear his voice to discipline you; on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard him speaking out of the fire.
For love of your fathers he chose their descendants and personally led you out of Egypt by his great power,
driving out of your way nations greater and mightier than you, so as to bring you in and to make their land your heritage, as it is today.
This is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.
You must keep his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you forever."

Ps 77(76):12-13.14-15.16.21.

I remember the deeds of the LORD;
yes, I remember your wonders of old.
And I meditate on your works;
your exploits I ponder.

O God, your way is holy;
what great god is there like our God?
You are the God who works wonders;
among the peoples you have made known your power.

With your strong arm you redeemed your people,
the sons of Jacob and Joseph.
You led your people like a flock
under the care of Moses and Aaron.

Mt 16:24-28.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Or what can one give in exchange for his soul?
For the Son of Man will come with His angels in His Father's glory, and then hH will repay everyone according to his conduct.
Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."



Commentary of the day :

Vatican Council II
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes, § 37-38

Seeing the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom

Sacred Scripture teaches the human family what the experience of the ages confirms: that while human progress is a great advantage to man, it brings with it a strong temptation. For when the order of values is jumbled and bad is mixed with the good, individuals and groups pay heed solely to their own interests, and not to those of others. Thus it happens that the world ceases to be a place of true brotherhood. In our own day, the magnified power of humanity threatens to destroy the race itself…



Hence if anyone wants to know how this unhappy situation can be overcome, Christians will tell him that all human activity…must be purified and perfected by the power of Christ's cross and resurrection. For redeemed by Christ and made a new creature in the Holy Spirit, man is able to love the things themselves created by God, and ought to do so. He can receive them from God… Thus He entered the world's history as a perfect man, taking that history up into Himself and summarizing it.(11) He Himself revealed to us that "God is love" (1 John 4:8) and at the same time taught us that the new command of love was the basic law of human perfection and hence of to worlds transformation. To those, therefore, who believe in divine love, He gives assurance that the way of love lies open to men and that the effort to establish a universal brotherhood is not a hopeless one. He cautions them at the same time that this charity is not something to be reserved for important matters, but must be pursued chiefly in the ordinary circumstances of life. Undergoing death itself for all of us sinners,(12) He taught us by example that we too must shoulder that cross which the world and the flesh inflict upon those who search after peace and justice.