Embracing Edith Stein (eBook)

Wisdom for Women from St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Anne Costa (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
128 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-315-8 (ISBN)

Join author Anne Costa as she shares the wisdom of Edith Stein. While the author never knew Edith Stein personally, her writings had a profound effect on her, and she came to view Edith Stein as a spiritual friend. Embracing Edith Stein shows how the different aspects of the life and teachings of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross can serve as a guide for women and their unique vocation today. Written in a friendly, conversational style, this is one woman sharing the story of her friendship with this saint with her readers.

• chapter one •

Edith Stein: A Woman in Search of Freedom and Truth

“My longing for truth was a single prayer.”

Dear reader, it is my great joy and honor to introduce you to Edith Stein.

Those who knew her have called her engaging, joyful, childlike, brilliant, and kind. If I were to describe in a single sentence the Edith Stein I have come to know, I would say: “She was a seeker who was guided by grace and who ultimately surrendered to Love.”

Her life unfolded as a beautiful quest for authentic freedom and truth. There was a longing and restlessness in her that could not be satisfied by the things of this world—though her search led her to great intellectual heights and to a measure of worldly fame. Still, she also plumbed emotional depths that included times of deep despair, loneliness, and the questioning and subsequent “rejection” of her religion and prayer life. In the end, she received the gifts of a transforming grace and a spiritual peace from her Beloved Lord that would nourish and protect her, even as she came face-to-face with the greatest evil and tragedy of our times when she walked willingly toward her death at Auschwitz.

THE EARLY YEARS

When I encountered Edith Stein, I knew immediately that she was a different kind of saint. Born in Breslau, Germany, in 1891, she lived in the same era as our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Like us, she lived through the turn of a century and in a world of great tumult and tremendous change. We can view her likeness in the many photographs that depict the phases of her life and gaze at the images of her family members, friends, and all those who influenced her and had an impact on the decisions she made. Much of what we know about Edith was written by her own hand, and several of her biographers have met her or knew her personally. All of this makes a heart-to-heart encounter possible. She is someone we can learn from and who, in all her humanity, lived a life that can touch our own lives through recorded memories, firsthand accounts, and the words she left behind.

Who Edith became as a woman and a Carmelite nun could not have been possible without the firm foundations of her Jewish roots and the strong example of her beloved mother. Edith was the youngest of eleven children, the baby of the family, born to Frau Auguste and Siegfried Stein. Her father died before her second birthday, but she enjoyed the attention of doting siblings and a special closeness with her mother. Edith was born on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, and according to Edith, her mother “laid great stress on my being born on the Day of Atonement and I believe this contributed more than anything else to her youngest’s being especially dear to her.”8

Although of the middle class, her family was not without its hardships. Frau Stein endured the loss of four children early in her marriage and the untimely and sudden death of her husband when she was still responsible for the care of seven children. To support them, she assumed the daily management of the family lumber business, which was struggling financially. Frau Stein took on this responsibility against the advice of relatives, and during this period, there was a great deal of family tension. As a result, Edith saw her mother make daily sacrifices for the family, and Frau Stein’s example and conviction would greatly shape and foreshadow the type of sacrifices that Edith herself would make in later years.

More than anything, Edith witnessed the trust and reliance her mother had on God to carry out her daily duties. According to Waltraud Herbstrith, one of her biographers, “Frau Stein bore everything in union with God. Intelligent and energetic herself, she passed on these essential character traits to her youngest daughter. She was the formative influence in Edith Stein’s development, the primary source of strength and affection for the growing child.”9

Edith also enjoyed a close bond with her youngest sibling, Erna; they were said to be inseparable while growing up. Likewise, Edith benefitted from the guidance and teaching of her eldest sister, Else, who was often in charge of her care. Surrounded by these wonderful feminine and maternal figures, it is no wonder that Edith flourished both interiorly and intellectually.

When we think about the childhoods of saints, we often imagine that they were serene and exemplary in every way. We expect that, as children, their saintly tendencies were evident, or at least foreshadowed, but that was not exactly the case with Edith. By all accounts, Edith was a lively and engaging child, outstandingly bright and sensitive. She was intellectually mature beyond her years, in part because of her early and lifelong love for reading and learning. She even begged her mother for early admission to the Victoria School at the age of six—a request that was granted—and she was an excellent student there. However, when Edith didn’t get her way, she was known to pitch a fit such that she would need to be locked in her room! In this account of her childhood, Edith speaks candidly:

During my early years I was mercurially lively, always in motion, spilling over with pranks, impertinent and precocious and, at the same time, intractably stubborn and angry if anything went against my will. My eldest sister, whom I loved very much, tested her newly-acquired child-training methods on me in vain. Her last resort was to lock me in a dark room…. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I hammered on the door with both fists until my mother would finally declare we were exceeding the limit of tolerance to be expected of the other tenants; she then set me free.10

The innate sensitivity and high temperament of her youth, which eventually grew into a mature, selfless compassion and empathy in adulthood, caused Edith both confusion and pain as a child. Edith explained, “Whatever I saw or heard throughout my days was pondered…. The sight of a drunkard could haunt and plague me for days and nights on end.”11 By the age of seven, this keen awareness of the problems and plights of others caused Edith to become so interiorly focused that she described it as leading a strange double life, one in which she felt lonely and separated from others, including her beloved mother and family members. Carrying this inner burden often compromised her physical health. She relates:

I never mentioned a word to anyone of these things which caused me so much hidden suffering. It never occurred to me that one could speak about such matters. Only infrequently did I give my family any inkling of what was happening: for no apparent reason, I sometimes developed a fever and in delirium spoke of the things which were oppressing me inwardly.12

In spite of Edith’s rich interior imagination, an emerging sense of self-possession and control allowed her to develop a distinct firmness of character that was coupled with a great desire for freedom and independence. She wanted to be taken seriously and was impatient with those who treated her as a child. As Edith explained, “In my dreams I always foresaw a brilliant future for myself. I dreamed about happiness and fame for I was convinced that I was destined for something great.”13 She was ever anxious to answer that call—and school afforded her the opportunity to pursue her destiny.

Edith consumed her studies as if each lesson were her last meal, nourishing her mind and intellect to complement her active interior life. Edith said of those early school years, “Gradually my inner world grew lighter and clearer.”14 As Edith learned and grew, her world opened up, and she began to look beyond the sphere of influence of her family and friends. This included a questioning of the religion of her birth that led her on a quest for truth. By the time she had reached the age of thirteen, Edith had made the decision to stop praying.

At about the same time, Edith decided that she was finished with school. “I believe…a healthy instinct was the decisive factor. It told me I had been sitting on a schoolbench long enough and needed a change.”15 Edith was clearly burned out and, by some biographers’ accounts, depressed. I cannot help but think this decision was fueled by a deep restlessness within Edith that launched her on her quest for truth and meaning. I believe it also was the beginning of her formation as a future teacher, for what she found lacking in those who taught her, she was eager to embrace for those she would one day have in her own classrooms. In fact, it seems everything Edith went through in her life laid the foundation for the next phase of her journey.

Edith’s mother supported her decision to leave school, mainly because it was obvious that the stress of it was having an impact on Edith both physically and emotionally. As a means to recover and regroup, Edith went to stay with her married sister, Else, in Hamburg. Intending to stay a matter of weeks, she remained instead for ten months. There she experienced a prolonged period of pondering, coupled with the routine practicalities of domestic life. While her spiritual life remained in limbo during this time, the emotionality of her youth swiftly blossomed into a vibrant womanhood that brought greater maturity and a balanced and cheerful reserve that would become the hallmark of her personality.

The structure and routine that brought balance into Edith’s life led her many years later as a scholar and teacher...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	9.1.2023
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
ISBN-10	1-63582-315-3 / 1635823153
ISBN-13	978-1-63582-315-8 / 9781635823158

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