St. Edith Stein

St. Edith Stein: Model for Second-Career Vocations
By Sr. Lou Ella Hickman, IWBS

Our hearts are indeed restless until we rest in Him.

Perhaps St. Augustine’s famous insight sums up both the life of Edith Stein and those who life-styles have left them wanting more. Edith and Augustine knew this hunger well as both were second-career vocations as well as converts. For those who searching for more, Edith’s vocation is a reminder that religious life is not an escape but an adventure.

Her life would seem full and rich to those who knew her. Born into a loving and religious Jewish family in 1891, her inner hunger began in her pre-teen years. Even though she attended services regularly with her devout mother, Edith went as an atheist.

Dropping out of school for a while, Edith later went on to college where she earned a doctorate in philosophy. One of the first women in Germany to earn such a degree, Edith graduated summa cum laude. She then worked as Edmund Husserl’s assistant from 1916-1918. Husserl, or the Master as his students called him, was one of Germany’s leading philosophers.

Edith converted to Catholic faith in 1922. Yet the years prior to her baptism were ones of intense inner turmoil. While she was very tight-lipped concerning this longing in her letters, what she did say speaks loudly. In one letter, she described this turmoil as the ground burning under her feet. Later she described her search in almost simplistic terms, "My longing for truth was a single prayer."

Edith was in much demand as a lecturer and she also used her talents for writing, translating as well as teaching. During this whirlwind of activities, it was her intense prayer life which sustained her. She prayed the entire Office daily, as well as being a daily communicant. She also found time to pray an hour every morning. Oddly enough, when she was no longer allowed to lecture or teach due to Nazi policies, she was finally freed to pursue her heart’s desire--to enter Carmel.

Her letters reveal this radical change from her secular environment to cloister. Edith was such a popular and well-known speaker her letters have an air of urgency about them. However, she maintained her sense of focus and genuine concern for each person she responded to. When she was free to enter Carmel, one senses a change. This freedom was a breath of fresh air now that her work responsibilities were gone. Her letters express a profound joy--I am home at last; this is where I belong. The letters also reveal an Edith passionately concerned about her family as the Nazi government continued to tighten its grip on Germany. Often her joy was a poignant one. In her correspondence Edith often requested prayers especially for her mother who refused to even discuss the topic of her daughter to visitors. While this may seem rigid and unloving, the reality of conversion is no less than death. For some Orthodox families, when a member converts from Judaism to Christianity, that person is considered dead. With such an attitude, these families actually mourn in much the same way as if there had been an actual physical death. Edith’s vocation was a call to embrace the cross and that embrace would start with a family who could not even begin to fathom her decision. God seemed to have earmarked that call: her mother would die on September 14--the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross.

Edith entered Carmel in October of 1933. She was well aware of the cost of her decision. Just when her family seemed to need her the most, she walked into the silence of the cloister. Yet here her adventure of prayer began. One of my favorite lines from her letters reveals how committed Edith was to her share in the world. "It is God’s will that one person carry another’s burden." Another source I read commented how much she enjoyed being with the novices half her age as they, too, were filled with a sense of adventure. In reality she had not escaped from a cruel and angry world, she took its pain with her into the silence. So much so, on Passion Sunday of 1939 she offered her self as a victim not only for her people but for all of Germany. She had taken the name of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and she would embrace the cross totally. That embrace came on July 26, 1942 when the Dutch Bishops and nine other denominational churches issued a pastoral letter of protest condemning the Nazi policies concerning the Jews. In retaliation, a large group of converted Jews were arrested. Edith was arrested on August 2 along with her sister Rosa. (Rosa had also converted and was staying in the extern part of the convent.) On August 9 both she and her sister died in Auschwitz.

On October 11, 1998 Edith was declared a saint. Her canonization was the Church’s official proclamation: here is a life well-lived. Thus Edith’s life shows us that life does have exquisite meaning when one embraces the cross. She is a model because she lived well. Michael Gore summed up such living when he wrote in his article, "The Cup of Trembling"(SPIRITUAL LIFE, Spring, 1996, p. 30), "If we are lucky, if we resist crumbling in dread, we find ourselves guilty of a single crime: that of refusing to live on the edge of possibility." Because so many people are distracted in their embrace of many things, they are unaware of the gift of possibility. This is the restlessness of St. Augustine’s introductory line. Beyond Edith’s immense intellectual achievements, her greatest work was her embrace of darkness and evil. She understood and accepted the price of freedom for she had discovered the pearl of great price and then was willing to sell all she had to buy it. Edith’s choice speaks to those who have had careers and have found them lacking no matter how successful or enriching they might be.

Like many today who have misconceptions about religious life, Edith had to shed her own false notions. She wrote, ". . . I was of the opinion that to lead a religious life meant one had to give up all that was secular and to live totally immersed in the thoughts of the Divine. . . . even in the contemplative life, one may not sever the connections with the world." She also discovered who her real friends were as some refused to speak to her. She lost the support of most of her beloved family and died for those who hated her. Yet Edith found a freedom most merely dream of. She continues to beckon people to the freedom she relished in her faith as well as in her vocation. She walked into the darkness ahead of us and embraced it. "Here is the joy you seek."