He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

EDITH STEIN

A CHILD OF ISRAEL, A MARTYR FOR HER PEOPLE 

« As gold in the furnace, as a burnt offering. » (Wisdom 3.6)

Edith Stein was born on 12 October 1891 in Breslau, the capital of Silesia, which is today called Wroclaw and located within Poland.  She was the eleventh and last child of a Jewish family, four of whom had died in early childhood. She was not even two years old when her father, a wood merchant, died from sunstroke during a business trip. Her mother Augusta, an independent, proud, energetic and capable woman, took control of the business and made it prosper while raising by herself her seven children, in the strict observance of Jewish Law, with its fasting and feasts, and its rabbinical ceremonial, practiced not only at the synagogue, but also at home. Thus each meal was accompanied by thanksgiving recited in Hebrew, and dishes were carefully washed several times, according to the ritual.

At school Edith, who was remarkably talented, soon surpassed her friends, who were all older than she. Since she in no way took pride in this and was always ready to help those less gifted, everybody liked her. “From my childhood, I have known that goodness is worth more than intelligence”, she wrote.

At the age of fourteen, she suddenly interrupted her studies, but she took them up again two years later. In the meantime: « I lost the faith that I had had in my childhood [...] and I consciously and deliberately stopped praying”, she confessed (Life, p.83-91).

BORN FOR GLORY

« In my dreams, she wrote, I always saw a brilliant future for me. I dreamed about happiness and glory. For I was convinced that I was destined for something great, and that I was not at all made for the narrow, bourgeois circle into which I was born.” (Life, p. 45)

Once her secondary studies were over, she entered the University of Breslau and soon specialised in philosophy. She took the experimental psychology classes of professors Stern and Hönigswald, who were both Jews. One day, one of them started by saying: « When I say: “Gentlemen”, I am of course also addressing myself to the lady who is among you! »

So as not to annoy her mother, she accompanied her to the synagogue, with no conviction. She confessed that she remained an atheist until she discovered the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, according to which « to know is once again to receive and to deduce one’s law from objects themselves, and not to determine one’s law and impose it on objects”. Edith then entered philosophy, as one enters into religious life.

« I was twenty-one years old, she wrote, and was full of expectations. Psychology had disappointed me. I had come to the conclusion that this science was still in its infancy and lacked objective foundations. But what little I knew about phenomenology delighted me, especially by its objective working methodology. »

“Phenomenology” is a scholarly word to express a simple idea. This philosophy was for Edith Stein what « Aristotelico-Thomist realism » would be for the Abbé de Nantes’ students at College Saint-Martin, in Pontoise, in 1953: a deliverance from Kantism that was then in vogue in Germany, as it still is today in French universities:

“All young phenomenologists, she wrote, were above all and deliberately realists”, who became able to reach the very truth of being: « Truth, said Husserl, is not what psychologists say it is. They would like to make it depend on the person who thinks. Thus, the universal law of gravitation would only be true from the moment Newton discovered it. But truth does not spring from the person who knows it. »

This explains why Edith Stein was at Göttingen, in the heart of Germany, around mid-April, 1913, to take Husserl’s classes. Although the majority of the population was Protestant, the old bells of the churches had kept up the habit of ringing the Angelus three times a day.

The first visit Edith made was to Professor Reinach, who was Husserl’s assistant, and was in charge of the new students’ initiation. He is the one who introduced the young women to the “master”:

«  Professor Reinach spoke to me about you, Husserl said to her. Have you ever read one of my books?

–   Logical Researches, Edith answered.

–  What? Logical Researches? Not the whole thing, I suppose?

–  I read the whole second volume, said the young girl...

–  What a feat! the professor exclaimed with a smile; the entire second volume! That is heroic!

The student was immediately adopted by phenomenologists: Adolf Reinach, a disciple of Hans Lipps, the husband and wife Theodor Conrad and Hedwig Martius, Max Scheler, Roman Ingarden...

A student somewhat younger than Edith and who would become a Benedictine sister after having converted from Protestantism, Sister Aldegonde, drew this portrait:

« Edith passed completely unnoticed among us, in spite of her reputation of great intelligence... She even seemed rather old-fashioned to us... She was always seated in the first rows of the auditorium, a small silhouette, thin, insignificant, and looking as though absorbed in her intense thought. She had dark and smooth hair, coiled around her head and attached on the nape in a heavy chignon. She was almost sickly pale, and her big black eyes, with their intense glance, made her look severe, almost distant, so as to keep away unwanted curiosity. However, as soon as one approached her, an indescribable sweetness illuminated her eyes, a charming smile lit up her face, whose features had conserved a little of childhood’s ingenuousness and shyness. It cannot be said that she was beautiful or pretty, or that she possessed that feminine charm that seduces hearts straightaway... But there was something unique on this face with its high forehead, full of wisdom, and its marvellously expressive childlike features – a peaceful radiance – that one never tired of contemplating... » (p. 50)

That year, Husserl’s lessons dealt with Nature and the Mind, developing precisely the themes of the second volume of Researches. Furthermore, Max Scheler’s classes complemented the phenomenology of Husserl, for whom the questions concerning the individual hardly counted, the study of relations that arise from love, hate, repentance, and that lead to knowledge of other people:

« For me, as for many others, she wrote, his influence went far beyond the field of philosophy. I do not remember in what year Scheler returned to the Catholic Church, but it must have been near this time, for he was filled with Christian ideas and knew how to explain them with his brilliant mind and persuasiveness.

« For me, this was the revelation of a whole new world that until then was totally unknown. It did not lead me to the faith right away. But it unveiled to me a sphere of phenomena that I could no longer ignore. It is not in vain that we are taught not to be scared off by “bogies” and to welcome everything without bias. Thus, the limits of the rationalism in which I had been raised just collapsed without my knowing it; I suddenly found myself facing the world of faith. Before my eyes, I saw people living in that world, people whom I respected and with whom I had daily relations. This fact called for reflection. It was not yet the systematic examination of the religious question, my mind being too absorbed by other thoughts. But I welcomed without resistance the ideas of the people around me, and I was under their influence without realising it ».

Some time before, the study of the Our Father in old German had impressed the young woman, who added the study of philology to philosophy. She will always hearken back to the profound impression it had made upon her when she will afterwards reread this text with students.

At about the same time, an incident that happened during one of those mountain excursions for which she had a passion, surprised and touched her. She had to spend the night at an isolated farm. As she was getting ready to resume her journey at dawn, she attended by chance the common prayer that the masters and servants said before going to work.

Above all, in her thirst for knowing the real world, she was brought to study medieval Christian philosophy and ancient wisdom, that is to say, that of Saint Augustine, Duns Scotus, Saint Thomas, Plato and Aristotle.

She quickly became Husserl’s best student, the favourite confidante of his thought. The most difficult thing to do was to win over Mrs. Husserl:

« ...Small and thin, a pointed face with black eyes that always had an inquisitive and astonished look, answering to the poetic name of Malvina, Mrs. Husserl had the knack of paralysing the best students of her husband by her incisive and ironic comments... She resented philosophy because Husserl had vegetated for twelve long years in an obscure position at Halle, and she ardently applied herself to discouraging her three children from pursuing this non-profitable course of study!... When she attended her husband’s classes, it was, by her own reckoning, in order to count the number of students...

Edith was truly « adopted » by the Husserl couple and she became a friend, a regular visitor in the house. Thus she drank from the source. But her quest for knowledge was not alleviated. Summing up this period of ardent pursuit with a single word, Edith wrote: « Thirst for truth was my only prayer. »

This shows that the formalism of her Jewish education had already surrendered whatever priority it had occupied, leaving her soul open to a flood of Christ’s light.

I. CONVERTED TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

The conversion of Edith Stein resembles that of Henri Ghéon. The war of 1914 put an end to her studies. Edith spent two years of her life devoting herself to caring for the wounded, in the Mähren hospital in Austria. She received the Red Cross medal. Then, after having obtained her doctorate summa cum laude, the only doctorate in philosophy granted that year to a woman in the entire German Empire, she was invited by Husserl to join him at the University of Freiburg am Breisgau, where he had just been appointed to the chair in philosophy in this city. Dr. Edith Stein, who was twenty-five years old, became his assistant during the summer semester of the year 1916.

In July 1916, she was in Frankfurt, with Pauline Reinach:

« We entered the Cathedral for a few minutes and, while we were there, in a respectful silence, a woman came in with a shopping basket. She knelt down at a pew to say a brief prayer. That was something totally new to me. In the synagogues or Protestant churches where I had been, people only came for religious ceremonies. But here, anyone could come, in the middle of his daily work, into the empty church, as if to have a confidential dialogue. I have never been able to forget that. » (Life p. 282)

In a Frankfurt museum, she was enthralled by four statues from a Flemish “entombment”: the Virgin Mary supported by Saint John, and two holy women. Fascinated by the expression of the faces, she could not tear herself away from it. The impression was so strong that all the others masterpieces from Greek antiquity, the original reason for her visit, no longer touched her.

In November 1917, Professor Adolf Reinach was killed on the front, in Flanders. His young widow, Anna, asked Edith to help her classify all of her husband’s philosophical essays, with the intention of a posthumous publication. Without hesitating, she left the University to carry out this duty of friendship. Having witnessed at Gottingen the couple’s intimacy, their happiness, she feared that she would find her friend overwhelmed with sorrow. Anna appeared to her to have been transformed by the trial. Her delicate features were marked by the deep suffering that afflicted her. But Christ’s strength dwelled in her soul. The Cross had penetrated to the very innermost part of her being; it had at the same time wounded and healed her. The sacrifice, borne in love, united this soul to the crucified Saviour. From her entire person emanated a new radiance.

« It was my first encounter with the Cross, with this divine force that it confers to those who bear it. For the first time, the Church, born of the Passion of Christ and victorious over death, appeared clearly to me. At this very moment, my unbelief gave way, Judaism grew pale to my eyes, while the light of Jesus Christ rose in my heart. The light of Jesus Christ grasped in the mystery of the Cross. This is why, when taking the Habit of the Carmel, I wanted to add to my name that of the Cross… » (p. 55-56)

In the introduction to Edith Stein’s Spiritual Works, (Source cachée, Ed. du Cerf, 1998, p. 19), Father Didier-Marie Golay, o.c.d., translated: « my Judaism grew pale » and thought it was necessary to correct what the Saint meant by a footnote: « It could rather be said that it is after her luminous encounter with Christ that the light contained within Judaism started to shine once again for her… as she would confirm later on. »

To support his specious affirmation, he refers to words of the saint that Pope John Paul II quoted during the homily of the beatification ceremony on 1 May 1987 at Cologne: « I had ceased to practice my religion at the age of fourteen. I only felt Jewish once again when I had renewed my ties with God. » But whatever the partisans of Vatican II think, a total misunderstanding has to be made to interpret this remark to be a return of Edith Stein to Talmudic Judaism which she had well and truly abjured! In reality, it is with biblical Judaism that she renewed upon entering the Catholic Church. Having become Sister Theresa-Benedicta, she could not have better expressed the fact that she « felt Jewish again » because she had recognised in the Church of Christ the only true Israel, « the Israel of God » (Ga 6.16), as St. Paul says against « those who falsely claim to be Jews, but who are really members of the synagogue of Satan! » (Ap 2.9)

Driven by the same divine grace that was working in her husband’s heart, Anna Reinach, availing herself of a leave that he had during the summer of 1916, persuaded him to be baptised with her. Even though they were attracted to Catholicism, they addressed themselves to the Protestant pastor. A few hours before the beginning of the ceremony, seized with doubts, Reinach had questioned his wife: « Is it not wrong for us to be receiving baptism in this manner? Would it be that I do not feel ready to enter the Catholic Church? » But Anna reassured him: « That does not matter, we cannot tell what the future holds; once we are in communion with Christ, he will lead us wherever he wants! Let us enter his Church; I am unable to wait any longer. » Later on, the death of her husband completed Anna’s conversion: she entered the Catholic Church.

Confronted with the attitude of her friend, Edith, who claimed to be atheist, did not show any of the feelings that were troubling her, but the impression that it made on her was indelible.

When she returned to Freiburg, she met Heidegger, the existentialist. She immediately understood the interest of his research as « a reaction against Husserl’s tendency not to make account for existence and all that is concrete and personal ». Once again, I can hear my philosophy professor…

The following makes me see him, for that is the way he was with us, his students. Since newcomers understood nothing in Husserl’s classes, Edith organised introductory classes to phenomenology in order to help them. When she was asked in a solemn way: « So, you as well, you teach philosophy at Freiburg? » She answered somewhat mischievously: « Of course not! I only run a kindergarten for apprentice philosophers! »

« It is in this kindergarten, wrote her friend, Sister Aldegonde, that I discovered Edith. She had a gift for teaching and she trained us with unlimited patience, with silent and thoughtful kindness. Always pleasant, without the slightest irony or criticism, she welcomed our clumsy questions calmly, with even-temperedness, with devotion; as a result, we left her no time to herself! »

When on vacation in the Palatinate region at the home of the Conrad-Martius family, her Protestant friends, Edith began by going to church with them for Sunday service. She made this observation: « For Protestants Heaven is closed, but for Catholics, it is open » One day in the library, she took a book at random, the Life of Saint Theresa of Avila by Herself. « I began reading it; I was immediately captivated and could not stop before having finished it. When I closed the book, I said to myself: this is the truth. »

She therefore started studying the catechism, and as soon as she thought that she had sufficient knowledge, she went to the Catholic church to attend Mass:

« Nothing was foreign to me, she wrote, and I followed the ceremonies to the slightest detail. A venerable priest, Fr. Breitlig, parish priest of Bergzabern, went to the altar and celebrated Mass with a profound recollection. I waited until the end of his thanksgiving in order to meet up with him in the rectory. After a short conversation, I asked to be baptised. He looked at me with great surprise, telling me that a minimum of preparation was required in order to be admitted into the Church

– How long have you been instructed in the Catholic faith, he asked me, and by whom? »

« The only reply I managed to stutter out was: “Please, Father, would you question me.” »

A long conversation ensued, during which Edith was examined on the entire Christian doctrine. Full of admiration for the work of grace that God revealed to him in this soul, the priest gave in to her desire. He agreed to baptise her on 1 January 1922. The happy catechumen spent the vigil in prayer, close to the Tabernacle, and was invested with divine grace on the threshold of a new year.

Edith had wanted to add to her own first name that of Theresa in order to express her gratitude towards the saint and that of Hedwig out of affection for her godmother. Recalling this day, Mrs. Conrad-Martius said: « The most beautiful of all was her radiant joy, a child’s joy! »

Immediately after being baptised, Edith made her first Communion, and from then on, the Eucharist became her daily bread. Her friends report that since she entered the Church, her entire being was radiant with a luminous joy, comparable to that which shines on a young bride’s face. The Bishop of Speyer, Mgr Sebastian, gave her the Sacrament of Confirmation in his private chapel, on the feast of the Purification and, in Speyer, she met Canon Schwind, who welcomed her as a child into his own family, and became her spiritual director. When he died on 1 September 1927, Edith wrote his funeral eulogy in the Review of the Clergy.

There remained, however, one difficult thing to be accomplished and before which her heart secretly failed her: announce her conversion to her mother. The news was likely to strike a nasty blow to the heart of her elderly mother, to wound a marvellous intimacy, made out of tenderness and reciprocal trust; or even to open up a gulf of misunderstanding between the mother and daughter. What to do? Edith did not consider using the roundabout means of a letter of explanation. She went straight to the point, left for Breslau and went to the family home and there, kneeling down near her mother and looking deep into her mother’s eyes, she murmured with softness and firmness: « Mother, I have become Catholic. »

Then, this heroic mother, who for so many years had nobly stood up to trial, overseeing, at the same time, the education of her seven children and the management of the business, this strong woman felt her courage abandoning her, she wept. Edith did not expect this. She had never seen her mother cry! She had expected reproaches, violence, rupture. But her mother wept. Soon, Edith’s tears mingled with hers.

A Catholic friend of the Stein family explained: « I remain convinced that it is the transformation wrought by grace in Edith, the supernatural force which animated her, that disarmed Mrs. Stein. Without understanding, this God-fearing woman suddenly felt as though her daughter was immersed in a mystery of divine grace. In spite of her extreme sorrow, she resigned herself, admitting that she had been defeated and that she was powerless to fight. At the first encounter, all her friends were able to perceive how much Edith had been transformed, even though she had applied all her love and a great vigilance to not letting any change show in her relations with her family.

Edith spent six months with her family, surrounding her mother with respect and love. She accompanied her to the synagogue, took part in her fasting and adapted herself to the schedule of her everyday life. Her mother observed her in silence. She confided to a friend: « I have never seen anyone pray as Edith does. » She knew that it was useless to try to recover her. However, when the rabbi recited the Jewish prayer shema Israel, « Listen, o Israel, your God is One », she could not refrain from seizing her child’s arm, murmuring into her ear: « You see, my daughter, our God is One. » 

Edith then entered the service of the teaching Dominicans of St. Magdalena of Speyer, as a teacher. She remained eight years with them, from Easter 1923 until Easter 1931, sharing their poor and secluded lives… and throwing herself into Saint Thomas! But not to become a “Thomist”… She herself pointed this out. It was not “Thomism” that interested her, but Saint Thomas himself. And, by the forcefulness of her thought, she would be brought to going beyond Saint Thomas, to improve on him, to perfect him with the modern acquisitions of phenomenology and existentialism.

Saint Thomas distinguishes a supernatural order of truths, which falls within the province of revelation and faith, and a natural order of truths, which falls within that of natural reason. Husserl ignores this distinction between the natural and the supernatural. According to him, reason remains the sole supreme judge of truth and falsehood.

Undoubtedly, Husserl himself, who had converted from Judaism to Protestantism, allowed for faith, but, according to him, it rests on the irrational, which is neither true nor false… Edith Stein opens a new path: that of a “Christian philosophy” totally dependant on the faith. First, it is a “total philosophy” which also embraces the truths of the faith; thus faith, being the highest certainty, based on the authority of God who revealed it, must also act as the judge of the acquisitions of natural reason and give them its approbation.

Edith Stein met Husserl again: « I spoke with him in all sincerity. His wife seemed opposed to my conversion, but, at each one of her expressions of incomprehension, he himself answered, in such beautiful and profound terms that I had almost nothing to add. Nevertheless, I believe that on this point it is important to have no illusions. Most certainly, it is good to grapple with these problems (of faith); but the responsibility of my interlocutor is increased, my own likewise. And I do not have any doubt that prayer and sacrifice are of greater weight than all that we might say to one another, and that they are very necessary.

« For it is quite different from simply being in a state of grace, or from being chosen by God as an instrument. It is not up to us to judge in the matter, but we must confide in God’s infinite mercy. However, we must not close our eyes to the gravity of the problem. After each encounter, even as discussion proves to be vain, the urgent necessity of a personal holocaust becomes imperative for me. Whether our present way of life is more or less good, in reality, we cannot say. What we are sure of is that we are here below, presently, in order to work out our salvation as well as that of the souls attached to ours. Of this, there is no doubt…. »

It is the account of this personal « holocaust » that we must now relate.

II.  A VICTIM FOR HER PEOPLE

From 1923 to 1931, she spent an initial laborious period at Speyer, in the shade of the convent of the teaching Dominicans of St. Magdalena, illuminated by the joy of discovering the truth. As a professor of German for the higher classes of the college for young women, Edith prepared her students for State examinations and soon after, young nuns for teaching. « For us, she was a luminous example », wrote the superior. Very simple, humbly devoted to her daily task, she wished to go unnoticed. But this was impossible. The students and the teachers unceasingly had recourse to her skill of explaining the most difficult of questions. She never refused:

« As for our relations with others, she wrote, the needs of souls transcend any rule of life.  For our personal activities are only ways to strive for an end, while love of neighbour is the very end in itself, since God is Love. »

On Sundays and feast days, when the sisters were called to the parlour, Edith relieved them of the job of washing dishes. She spent hours on holidays distributing soup to the poor. She obtained the list of the poor of the city, and at Christmas she would disappear mysteriously, her arms loaded with parcels that had been prepared in secret.

She gave proficiency lessons to young teachers. « She lavished on us an exquisite affection, extremely maternal, however; no one would have thought of disobeying her in act, not even in thought. » They then came into her room and sat on the floor around her, « so as not to waste time needed to carry in a dozen chairs » Edith spoke to them about current political events and the great social problems of that time, something that was completely new in those days.

She remained for hours absorbed in her prayer, on a prie-dieu placed close to the altar, on the Gospel side, in the choir of the small convent chapel, close to the door (opposite).

 « Seeing her everyday praying in front of us at Mass, we sensed the mystery, the hidden splendour of a life totally transformed by faith. »

From 1928 onward, for Holy Week she would go to the abbey of Beuron, situated on the banks of the Danube, close to Sigmaringen, one of the centres of liturgical renewal, a rendezvous of intellectuals “in quest.”… She avoided the crowds of pilgrims as well as study groups and discussions. She spent long hours in prayer, in the less-frequented side chapel of the abbey church. A priest discovered her in this retreat, lost in silent prayer of regard.

« I felt, he wrote, as though I was attending prayer in the early Church, that which the orantes represent for us on the walls of the Catacombs. Edith seemed to me to be the living incarnation of this prayer that the Church, standing and yet already lifted up from the earth, addresses to God. She seemed lost in her union with Christ and undoubtedly she repeated with the Lord the fervent supplication that he addressed to the Father: “For their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in Truth” (Jn 17.19). »

A friend related that she spent the entire day of Good Friday, from 4 o’clock in the morning until nightfall, in the abbey church, without eating. To those who were amazed at this rigorous fast, wondering how she was able to stand it, she replied with a smile: « My aged mother, who is 84 years old, still observes twenty-four hour fasts. And how would one not be able to stand this on the day of the death of Our Lord? » This was in 1932, the preparation of the victim, ten years before the holocaust.

Another young woman saw her praying at length before the Virgin of Sorrows. « I could not understand it, she admitted, for I thought this image to be of rather poor taste, and I was surprised at Edith’s devotion. It is only much later when I learned of her death, that I thought that that was when the Virgin of Compassion began to teach her child about the sorrows that she, as well, would endure… »

« When the time came for her to leave us, during her last visit to Speyer, the two of us were having coffee,. I said to her: “But, Miss. Stein, you are trembling?” She answered me:

–  How can I not be distressed or tremble, when I know that Hitler will soon seize my relatives and me! » One thinks of how Jesus was prey to agony on Palm Sunday, when He announced to the Greeks His coming glorification through His death :« Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour. » (Jn 12,27)

Sister Aldegonde recalls: « How can one forget this expression so grave, unspeakably sorrowful, that she cast on the Crucified One – the King of the Jews – when she read through the unfolding of events the sign of a racial persecution ever more violent.  I heard her murmuring one day:

« “Oh how much my people will have to suffer before they convert!” And a thought crossed my mind rapidly, like a bolt of lightening: Edith is offering herself to God for the conversion of Israel. »

Despite this, she appeared full of spirit and cheerfulness, laughing heartily, leading the most ordinary of conversations. Gifted with a marvellous sense of humour, knowing better than anyone else how to discover the funny side of a situation.

Her days began at 5 o’clock in the morning, and ended at 11 at night. She received Communion every day, recited the Breviary. To get a glimpse at what she drew from it, it suffices to read her work Prayer of the Church, published at Paderborn in 1936:

« The soul of David, this royal cantor, vibrated like a harp under the delicate touch of the Holy Spirit. From the overjoyed heart of the Virgin, full of grace the Magnificat burst forth, The canticle of the Benedictus opens the lips of old Zacharias that had gone mute, when the hidden word of the angel becomes a visible reality. What rises from these hearts, filled with the Holy Spirit, can be expressed in a single word, an action; it passes from one mouth to the next. It falls to the Divine Office to allow the message to pass from generation to generation.

« These numerous voices are going to blend and disappear as though swept into the immense current of the mystical river, whose resonant murmuring rises, like a canticle of praise, toward the Holy Trinity, God Creator, Redeemer, Giver of life. »

What vigour!

Sometimes, she remained the entire night close to the Tabernacle and in the morning she went to work without any apparent effort. « How would such a night have exhausted me! » she replied one day, with a smile, evading, in this manner, all explanations.

For a long while, she had been abstaining from meat, her meals were frugal and she observed frequent fasts.

In an article published for the tenth anniversary of the death of Edith Stein, Father Przwara recalls his meeting with her and their common works: « She possessed, he wrote, a spirit endowed with two distinct orientations: an unlimited understanding of beings and things, an entirely feminine receptivity; but also an objective and virile intelligence. In discussion, it was not rare that this second aspect of her personality got the upper hand; one then attended veritable heated exchanges between her and her interlocutor, nothing then betrayed the extreme delicateness of her sensitivity. Her style was clear, harmonious, like the exterior of her person. »

She had to cope with numerous occupations. The Jesuit Father Eric Przywara urged her to translate into German the Letters of Newman, then the De Veritate of Saint Thomas Aquinas. She performed both of these tasks perfectly, respecting even the slightest nuances of Newman’s thought, as well as the particular rhythm of his style. As for Saint Thomas, « it is a marvel, wrote Father Przywara, to find a translation that transposes without alteration, the sober clarity of Aquinas’ Latin into the German language… Moreover, as a translator she has such skill, her marginal notes are so rich with meaning, that the mind feels at ease with this work as though it had been composed for our modern minds. One finds therein Saint Thomas, and nothing but Saint Thomas, for never does the vocabulary of phenomenology – in which the translator is a past master –encroach on the language of the saint. However it seems as though Husserl, Scheler and Heidegger are present in it, and called upon to measure their doctrine against that of Thomas Aquinas come down into the arena of contemporary philosophy, and the doors open effortlessly between the two worlds. »

She then engaged in great activity as a lecturer throughout Germany, with growing success. She expressed herself with tranquil assurance, without a gesture, in a clear and distinct voice. Holding her hands pressed or folded, using no figures of rhetoric and without raising her voice, she captivated her audience:

« I will never forget her way speaking, which is indescribable, said Sister Aldegonde. She tackled the gravest of problems in a deeply moving way: with a great seriousness and a ravishing smile. » Inattentive to the praise and the rumours of the world, Edith wrote to her: « If I did not feel required to speak of supernatural things, nothing would be able to make me take the platform… But in fact, it is always a small truth, very simple that I have to say: how one can begin to live by putting one’s hand into the Lord’s. »

On 22 November 1931, she gave a conference before a large Catholic audience at Heidelberg on Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, « a burning heart, a heart which, through her faithful, tender and delicate love, ravished everyone's heart. A heart overflowing with love. » Reread in the light of the events that were to follow, this panegyric appears to be a veritable autobiographical account.

In 1932, she left the Dominicans of Speyer and became a senior lecturer at the Scientific Institute of Pedagogy in Munster. It was not to last. As a “non-Aryan” she was soon excluded from teaching by the Nazis.

MOUNT CARMEL

She taught her last class on 25 February 1933.

On her way to Beuron, where she went for Holy Week, she made a stop at the Carmel of Cologne on the evening of the first Friday of the month of April 1933: « I spoke interiorly to the Lord, saying to Him that I knew that it was His Cross that was imposed on our people. Most Jews did not recognise the Saviour, but was it not the responsibility of those who understood, to bear this Cross? This is what I wanted to do. I only asked Him to show me how. As the ceremony came to an end in the chapel, I received the innermost certainty that I had been answered. I was unaware however under what form the Cross would be given to me. »

We are far from the post-conciliar religion, which no longer speaks of the Cross, nor of the conversion of the Jews, we are rather at the foot of the steep mountain, crowned with a large Cross shown by Our Lady to the three seers of Fatima on 13 July 1917. She understands that her people are going to suffer from the malediction that long ago they called down upon their children (Mt 27.25). And so she offers herself as a victim of expiation to the Mercy of God, in order that the Precious Blood of the Redeemer may effectively sprinkle her people, but in order to draw God’s Mercy on to them, so that God take pity and convert them.

She had long foreseen the scope that the persecution of the Jews would attain. She delivered to Dom Walzer, the prior of Beuron, a message for the Holy Father, warning him that Catholics were just as threatened as were the Jews. Pius XI did not reply to this letter. He was too occupied with his politics: during this year of 1933, a “Holy Year”, the jubilee of the Redemption, he signed a concordat with Hitler! (cf. He is Risen n^o 7, p. 9-10)

« Suddenly, it appeared clearly to me that the hand of the Lord struck heavily down on His people, and that the fate of this people became my lot. »

She had already been considering entering the Carmel for twelve years now, « ever since that memorable day of 1921, when I came across the Life of Saint Teresa, putting an end to my long peregrination towards the true faith. On 1 January 1922, when I was baptised, I felt that this was yet again but a step, a preparation for my entry into the Order of Carmel…

« I had lived eight years with the teaching Dominicans of Spire, deeply united to them, without thinking of entering their Order. I considered Beuron as “the antechamber of Heaven”, but the idea of becoming Benedictine had not crossed my mind. It had always seemed to me that the Lord was keeping my share at Carmel, a share that I would not be able to find elsewhere. »

During a first encounter with the sisters in the parlour of the Carmel of Cologne, she had to sing before them, which she did almost whispering, « more intimidated than if I had had to address an audience of a thousand people » … After a month spent merely observing, her entry was set for 15 October, on the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila.

The hardest step of all was to announce the news to her mother.

« On the first Sunday of September, I was alone at home, with my mother. She was seated in front of the window, her knitting in her hands and I was very close to her. Suddenly the long awaited question rose up to her lips:

–  Just exactly what are you going to do with the sisters in Cologne?

–  Share their life.

«  Mama recoiled despairingly! She continued to knit but missed a few of the stitches of her work. While she attempted to recover them with a trembling hand and I tried to help her, I felt an abyss widening between us…

« From that day, peace disappeared.

« A heavy atmosphere oppressed the house. From time to time, mama made a violent scene, followed shortly thereafter by a silent fit of despair […].

« My brother-in-law, Biberstein came and found me on the eve of my departure. He was unable to conceal his own point of view: he was unable to understand. It seemed to him that my entry into the convent, at the precise moment when Jews were suffering persecution, caused a break between our people and me. The entirely different point of view that I had adopted escaped him entirely. »

How would he have been able to understand that Edith was offering herself as a victim like Jesus, for the salvation of her people? This idea had not dawned on Bergson, for instance, although he was drawn to Catholicism. He refused to convert because he wanted to remain faithful to his people during the persecution. In the end, Bergson did not die a Catholic. And thus, he served no purpose; he was of no use to anyone. On the other hand, Edith Stein entered straight into the communion of saints:

« Whoever enters into the Carmel, she wrote, is not lost to one’s family and friends, quite the opposite, they benefit, for it is our role to stand before God for all. »

« My last day at home, on 12 October, was a feastday. For Jews, it was the closing day of the feast of Tabernacles, it was also my birthday. My mother went to the synagogue and I accompanied her. We wanted to spend this day in the greatest intimacy possible. The rabbi gave a beautiful sermon. We went there by tramway and spoke little. On the way home, mama wanted to walk. It was a walk of three-quarters of an hour and she was eighty-four years old. I told her, so as to console her a little, that my first months at the Carmel would be a trial period. But she replied to me:

–  If you have decided to try out this life, it is because you intend to persevere…

«  She asked me:

–  The sermon was beautiful, was it not?

–  Of course.

–  One can therefore be pious, while remaining Jewish?

–  Certainly, if one knows nothing else.

–  Why then did you learn something else? she said with despair, and she added: I have nothing against Him… He might have been a very good man. But why did He liken himself to God? » (p. 133-134)

THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB

Dom Walzer, Edith’s spiritual director, simply said: « When it became impossible for me to keep her in the world, she ran straight to Carmel, like a child who is going to leap into her mother’s arms. » She left a world filled with friends and admirers, in order to enter into the silence of a hidden life. She was received into the community as any other postulant would be, most of the sister were totally unaware of her past and her works. No one thought to admire the newcomer who, nevertheless, won all hearts by her radiant kindness. One of her companions testified: « The superiors took advantage of any occasion, even the slightest, to humiliate her who had won so much glory in the world. » Without stepping back, without apparent effort, she entered peacefully and joyfully into a totally new life. She ate well, slept soundly and was bursting with cheerfulness; three qualities which, according to Saint Teresa, are signs of an authentic vocation.

« When I find myself in the silence of the choir, she wrote, I cannot sufficiently thank God for having withdrawn me from the path of error so as to give me access to his peace. Here I am, having reached this place where I belonged for so long! And far be it from me the thought of bearing a grudge against those – (the Nazis) – who quite unwittingly opened the way to me… »

On Sunday, 15 April 1934, Édith Stein received the Holy Habit and the name of Sister Theresa-Benedicta of the Cross. On the day of her temporary profession, on Easter Sunday, 21 April 1935, the radiant peace of Sister Benedicta impressed her entourage. One of her teaching colleagues saw her:

« Her radiant expression and her appearance of youthfulness remain for me an unforgettable memory. She seemed to have grown twenty years younger and her happiness deeply moved me… However, when I expressed to her my joy at knowing that she was sheltered in the secrecy of Carmel, she replied sharply: “Don’t you believe it! They will surely come even here to look for me. In any event, I do not expect to be spared.” It appeared clear to her that she would have to suffer for her people, in order to fulfil her mission of bringing her family back Home. » (p. 172)

In 1937, she wrote: « Here, we still live in peace, in security behind the walls of our cloister. But the tragic fate of our sisters in Spain is a salutary warning to us and a harbinger of what is to come. »

The first shock occurred on the occasion of the plebiscite organised by Hitler on 20 April 1938. The friends of the monastery and the majority of the Carmelites were of the opinion to abstain from voting: a few votes more or less would not change the state of affairs, and they thought it best to go unnoticed, to keep a low profile.

But Sister Benedicta, usually so mild and submissive, vehemently implored her sisters to vote against Hitler whatever the consequences of such an attitude might be for the community and for each one of them. She pointed out forcefully that Hitler was God’s enemy and he was dragging Germany along with himself into an abyss of evil. She spoke ardently, almost with violence, forgetting all reserve. However, the community remained hesitant on which course of action to take and discord reigned among the sisters.

On the morning of the day set for the vote, at 8 o’clock, an official delegation arrived at the Carmel, bringing a ballot box and the necessary lists, and requested to set up in the parlour in order to collect the votes. The Mother Prioress expressed her surprise at this unexpected conduct. But the head of the delegation told her that the government of the Reich, being familiar with the Carmelite’s strict rules of enclosure had decided to have the religious vote in their convent. The prioress pointed out that, although the vote was secret, it was a matter of performing a public act.  Going into town gave an example of patriotism. The Carmelites had never failed to do so, and they understood poorly the meaning of a vote at home.

As all discussion proved to be useless, the roll call took place in the parlour and the vote followed. At the end, the chairman pointed out that two sisters were missing from the vote:

–  Anne Fitzeck?

–  She is not suited to vote, replied the prioress.

–  Why?

–  She is mentally ill.

There was a short pause, then came the dreaded question.

–  And Doctor Edith Stein? Born in 1891, she, of course, has civil rights?

The response came coldly:

–  She is not Aryan.

The three men jumped.

–  Write immediately: non-Aryan », then they left the monastery (p. 176-177)

9 November 1938. The synagogue of Cologne was burned, the Jews were looted and tracked down ruthlessly throughout the city! Sister Benedicta seemed dumbfounded with grief: « It is the shadow of the Cross that casts itself over my people, she said. Oh! If only they would give in to reason! This is the realisation of the malediction that my people called down upon themselves [ « His blood be on us, and on our children » , Mt 27.25 ]. Cain must be punished [Sister Theresa-Benedicta compared the Jews killing Jesus to Cain killing Abel], but woe to him who lays a hand on Cain! [ « Therefore whosoever slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold », Gn 4.15] Woe to this city, to this country, to these men, on whom divine vengeance will weigh heavy for all the outrages that will be committed against the Jews. »

But then, it may be asked: Who, therefore, will obtain mercy? The children of the Church.

Yet it was difficult for Sister Theresa-Benedicta to tolerate hearing Jews criticised, and always defended them. She often said that Jews and Jesuits served as “scapegoats” who can be easily blamed for all wrongs. Her faithfulness to the chosen people was nevertheless in no way provocative. Always ready to reply with patience and moderation to the questions that she was asked, she was not really understood except by those who, like herself, knew how to adore the impenetrable designs of God for Israel, without letting themselves be disconcerted by passing events (p. 183).

Given the growing fear of drawing reprisals on her community, Sister Theresa-Benedicta obtained the permission from her Mother Prioress to be sent to the Carmel of Echt, in Holland, where she was welcomed with open arms on the evening of 31 December 1938: « Her features were marked with gravity and sorrow, the sisters said, but we were won over from the outset by her delicacy and her big heart. » Her sister Rose, who had waited for the death of Mrs. Stein before asking to be baptised in turn, came to join her there in the summer of 1940.

Sister Maria-Pia related: « Edith left her cell shortly before the bell to go downstairs for matins and often got up before the hour to rise. We could see her through the open window, praying in silence, her arms extended to form a cross. Rose and Sister Benedicta spent several hours each day praying in this manner. Undoubtedly they were prompted to do so to satisfy their personal inclination, but as well to intercede with God, as Esther and Judith had done in bygone ages. They prayed with an intense love so as to disarm divine justice and obtain mercy for the victims and for their torturers... »

With the war came persecution against Catholics, as Edith Stein had foreseen from 1933. A letter dated September, 1941 shows the spirit with which Sister Theresa-Benedicta welcomed this persecution:

« It is good to remember in these days that poverty can even consist in seeing ourselves deprived of our enclosure. We committed ourselves to live cloistered, but God did not commit Himself to leave us always within our walls. He does not need them, for He possesses other walls to protect us. It is the same for the Sacraments. They represent an inestimable grace. Never can we receive them with sufficient fervour. But God is not bound by the Sacraments. If we were deprived of them under duress, God would know how to compensate us with an over abundance, and He would do it with all the more munificence than we will have been faithful in receiving them up to then...

« Therefore, it is a duty for us to observe as conscientiously as possible our rules of enclosure, then to remain in peace, hidden in God with Christ. If we are faithful on this point, even if we were to be turned out into the street, God would send his angels to guard us, and their invisible wings would surround us more efficiently than the thickest and highest of walls. We may pray, of course, that this situation be spared us, but we must always add with sincerity: “Your will be done and not mine”… » (p. 187)

Fully aware of the advice of Our Lord: « When they persecute you in this city, flee into another » (Mt 10.23), she attempted to flee to the Carmel of Pâquier, in Switzerland, with her sister Rose. The superiors began the well-regulated administrative procedures that attracted the attention of the Gestapo. Summoned to the offices of Maastricht, she replied to the « Heil Hitler! » of the official with a resounding « Laudetur Jesus Christus! » to the utter amazement of the police officers.

« The procedures with Pâquier take their course. As for me, I am so absorbed by the work of Saint John of the Cross that all the rest leaves me cold. » (p. 190)

The year 1942 was the beginning of the massive deportations to the East. The Catholic bishops and the Protestant ministers wrote a common Pastoral Letter that was read from the pulpit on Sunday, 26 July. After having recalled the tears shed by Jesus over Jerusalem, which had failed to recognise the hour of grace, the bishops called the attention of Christians to the suffering of the Jews and the forced labour deportees:

« It is just that those responsible for these violent measures weigh up as well all the consequences, […]. We beseech God, dear faithful, by the intercession of the Mother of Mercy, that He deign to grant soon a just peace to the world. May He strengthen the people of Israel so harshly affected and lead it to salvation through Christ Jesus. »

The Nazis’ reaction was immediate: they arrested all the priests, religious and nuns of Jewish origin. On 2 August, at 17 o’clock, the two Stein sisters were taken away by the Gestapo:

« Come! We are going for our people » murmured Sister Theresa-Benedicta to Rose.

Later on, when the religious responsible for the canonical inquiry published the historical account of the facts, he was able to conclude « After having heard Commissioner Schmidt’s explanations, it can be considered that the religious and nuns apprehended in this manner died as witnesses of the faith. Their arrest was made out of hatred for the statement of our bishops. It is therefore the bishops and the Church that were designated and struck by the deportation of religious and Catholics of Jewish origin. »

The nuns of the small Carmel of Echt were beset with anguish, while awaiting news, when on 5 August, two telegraphed messages, identical in their wording, arrived at their convent and at that of the Ursuline’s of Venlo. They were sent from the village of Westerbork, situated in the north of Holland, close to the railroad station of Hooghalen. They were issued by the municipality and requested, in the name of the absent, warm clothes, blankets and medicine.

Each nun wanted to contribute her share to the package. The chapter was soon transformed into a real storehouse. Finally, the food, blankets, medicine, books and candles were packed into a large bundle. A small image found in Sister Benedicta’s cell was added. She had written on the verso her desire of offering herself in holocaust for the conversion of the Jews.

Two young people from Echt agreed to deliver the package as well as mail from the Carmel. They related their visit to the deportees’ camp:

« We arrived at precisely 5 o’clock, at Hooghalen station, there, we met the two men sent by the convent at Venlo to Miss Ruth Kantorowicz [another convert that Sister Benedict looked after]

« It was on 6 August.

« The camp, composed of thousands of shacks, was situated about five kilometres from the station. The Dutch police, to whom we had to present ourselves, occupied a building at the entrance. We handed over our telegrams, as well as cigars and cigarettes, and soon we exchanged friendly words with the policemen, who reluctantly carried out their surveillance duty.

« At our request, the officers on active duty sent a small Jewish kid to the shack where Sister Benedicta and Miss Rose could be found. After a few moments of anxious waiting, we saw the large barbed wire gate open, and in the distance, we caught sight of the brown Habit and the black veil of Sister Benedicta¸ accompanied by Rose.

« The Dutch police seemed extremely surprised to learn that nuns were in the camp and only Sister Benedicta’s actual presence convinced them that this was so.

« The meeting was as poignant as it was joyful. We shook hands and the emotions were so intense that the words stuck in our throats. We handed Sister Benedicta everything that we had been given for her; she seemed most pleased. She was particularly delighted by the messages from the sisters and the thought that they prayed for her.

« All of the written texts as well as the Mother Prioress’s letter were handed to her sealed through the Dutch police. Sister Benedicta related that she had found relatives and acquaintances in the camp… She described the trip, which had taken place without incidents as far as Amersfoort. But from this station on, the prisoners had suffered all sorts of vexations, then they were shoved with blows from the S.S. soldiers’ rifle butts into dormitories and locked in without being given anything to eat. However, non-Catholic Jews had received some food. The next morning, the transport set off for Westerbork. This is the place from where the prisoners were able to send telegrams, through the intermediary of the “Jewish councillor” responsible for assisting them. This councillor was very kind, especially with the Jewish Catholics. But, by order of the German authorities, Catholic Jews formed a special category, confined in a shack, and on whose behalf the counsellor was strictly forbidden to intervene.

« Sister Benedict gave this account calmly and with recollection. Her eyes shone with the mysterious brightness of holiness. In a quiet voice, calmly, she related the cruelty suffered by those around her, leaving out all that concerned her personally.

« She desired above all that the sisters of the Carmel know that she was still wearing her Habit, and that it was her intention and that of the other nuns – there were about ten of them – to keep it to the last.

« She said that the other prisoners were delighted to have priests and nuns with them. They had become the support and the hope of these poor people, who were expecting the worst. As for her, she said that she was happy to be able to give to others the consolation of a prayer or a word. Her deep faith transformed the atmosphere, around her arose a zone of grace and peace.

« On several occasions, she insisted that we reassure the Mother Prioress and the sisters; truly they could be in peace about her. She prayed almost the entire day outside of the time that she had to go for her meal. She had not the slightest complaint about the food or about the treatment of the soldiers. She seemed to be unaware of the possible length of their detention in the camp. Rumour had it though that a departure for Silesia, her native land, would take place in the day or the night of 7 August. She did not know if the rumour was true. A transport of Jews from Amsterdam was said to have arrived the previous night; was this an indication that they would be back on the road? She did not know. »

The messengers added in conclusion that Rose was fine as well, finding strength and support in her sister’s example.

The following passage, from the account of the envoys from Venlo, reveals to us a few additional characteristics:

« … After the S.S. sounded a shrill signal that put an end to the talk with the prisoners, Miss Ruth Kantorowicz still wanted to present her Carmelite friend to us.

« Her attitude struck us, since she was so resolute and peaceful. As we expressed to her very awkwardly our sympathy, the courageous nun replied “Whatever happens, I am ready. The Child Jesus is here as well among us.” Then she vigorously shook my hand, calling down the Lord’s blessing on me and my family. She added that it was not necessary to worry about her, that she knew that she was in God’s hands.

« When we were taking leave of one another, we were overcome with emotion and we were at a loss for words. The small group went towards the shacks, each prisoner turning back several times to wave farewell. Only, Sister Benedicta went away without turning her head, walking with an even step, most peaceful and collected…

« … Since we were unable to leave that evening for Venlo, we spent the night at Hooghalen – from Thursday the 6^th to Friday 7 August. The next morning, seeing on the platform of the station two men who were wearing the yellow star, despite the risk that this kind of conversation entailed, we approached them asking them if they came from the Hooghalen camp. They replied affirmatively. But as we wanted to question them about shack number 7 (the one where Ruth Kantorowicz and the Stein sisters were), they assured us that a night transport had evacuated all the Jewish Catholics and the religious of the camp, probably bound for the East...

From the mouth of a Jewish shopkeeper from Cologne, responsible for keeping watch on the prisoners of Westerbork, and who with his wife avoided deportation, we have this account:

« Among the prisoners that arrived on 5 August at the camp – of Westerbork – Sister Benedicta clearly stood out against the group by her peaceful manner and her calm attitude. The cries, the moaning, the state of worried over excitation of the newcomers were indescribable!

« Sister Benedicta went about among the women like an angel of consolation, calming some, tending to others. Many mothers seemed to have sunk into a kind of shock, akin to madness; they remained there moaning, as though in stupor, neglecting their children. Sister Benedicta took care of the children, washed them, combed their hair, and obtained food and essential medical care for them. As long as she was in the camp, she dispensed such a charitable assistance around her that it left people deeply moved. »

This shopkeeper, named Julius Markus, related that when he spoke to her about some insignificant detail, he asked her:

–  But you, what is to become of you now? »

She simply replied:

–  Until now, I have been able to pray and work, I hope to be able to continue to work and pray. »

This stop at Westerbork seems to have lasted from Wednesday morning, 5 August, until the night of the 6^th or 7^th. The camp had one thousand two hundred Jewish Catholics in all, among them there were from ten to fifteen religious. About a thousand of them were deported the same night as Sister Benedicta.

She succeeded in sending two messages to the Carmel of Echt. The first one, for which neither date nor place of origin is indicated, is couched in the following terms:

« Dear Mother,

« When your Reverence will receive the letter from P… (illegible name), she will know what he thinks. It seems to me, in the present circumstances, that it is better to attempt nothing. However, I abandon myself into the hands of your Reverence, leaving it to her to decide. I am satisfied with everything.

« A “scientia crucis” (“Science of the Cross”, was the title of her last book) can only be acquired if one truly begins to suffer from the weight of the Cross. From the first moment, I had the inner conviction of this and I said from the bottom of my heart: Ave Crux, Spes unica.

« I am the grateful child of your Reverence,

Sister B... »

On 6 August, she wrote a last time to the community of Echt: « Tomorrow the first transport leaves for Silesia or Czechoslovakia […]. I would also like to have the next booklet of our breviary (up to now, I have been able to pray superbly), our proof of identity and our bread ration cards. Many thanks and good-bye to everyone! »

On 7 August, Sister Benedicta was crammed with a thousand « Jewish Catholics » into a train that was bound for the East but whose destination was unknown. In the night, this train made a long stop in her native town of Breslau, where witnesses were able to communicate with her (Golay, op. cit., p. 31-32).

Then, she was never seen again. The death of Sister Theresa-Benedicta long remained a mystery. Although it is well established that she died in a concentration camp on 9 August 1942, it may be said that all was draped with new darkness, since the Second Vatican Council: a martyr of the Catholic faith, she has been made out to be a martyr of “Judaism”. The introduction of Father Golay to the Spiritual Works of the saint offers a new example of this confusion: « A Jewish martyr of Christian confession, she led us along the furrow of Nostra ætate (n^o 4). »

In support of this violent anachronism, Father Golay stresses that « the life of Edith Stein is symbolically placed under the sign of two Jewish feasts of fasting, of pardon and of memory: Yom Kippour and Ticha be-Av. As her life was entirely punctuated by the Jewish liturgy. » Has this Carmelite father not read the Epistle to the Galatians? « You are keeping special days, and months, and seasons and years! I am beginning to be afraid that I may, after all, have wasted my efforts on you! » (Ga 4, 10)

The detained nuns gathered together: a few Trappists, a Dominican, and the Carmelite, forming a small community, the responsibility of which was spontaneously entrusted to Sister Benedicta. She seems to have exerted a real influence over the others by the strength of her deep silence.

A mother, who escaped death, was deeply moved by Sister Benedicta’s attitude.

« What distinguished her from the other nuns, she wrote, was her silence. I had the impression that she was sorrowful to the depth of her soul, but not anguished. I do not know how to express it, but the burden of her sorrow seemed immense, overwhelming, so much so that when she smiled, this smile came from such a deepness of suffering that it hurt. She hardly spoke, and often looked at her sister, Rose, with an unutterable expression of sadness. She undoubtedly foresaw the fate of both of them. She was the only one of those who had fled Germany who had a premonition of the worst, while the Trappists still harboured illusions, talking among themselves of possibilities of an apostolate.

« … Yes I believe that she was aware, in advance, of the suffering that awaited them, not her own – she was too calm for that, and I would even say: much too calm! – but the sufferings of the others. Her entire attitude, when I see it again in my mind, as she sat in the shack, brings one thought to mind: that of the Virgin of Sorrows, a Pietà without Christ… » (p. 207-208)

In fact, like the Blessed Virgin, Edith Stein belongs by flesh and blood to this Jewish people whose rabbinical observances she practiced, still accompanying her mother to the synagogue after her conversion to Catholicism. But the flesh has nothing to offer except the victim for the sacrifice, the host for the martyrdom, for which fate Sister Theresa-Benedicta offered herself in communion with the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus and Mary, so that her people understand, open their eyes and convert. Then, the Church coming back herself to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Father will be able to forgive everyone, and to cure the rivalries, disputes, civil, racial, ethnic, religious wars that consume the world, and Christendom will come to life again.

Brother Bruno of Jesus

(*) Less than ten years after the death of Edith Stein, today Saint Theresa-Benedicta of the Cross, the account of her life by Mother Theresa-Renata of the Holy Spirit, Prioress of the Carmel of Cologne entitled Edith Stein, Lebensbild einer Philosophin und Karmelitin, was into its sixth edition, (Nuremberg, 1952). In 1954, , an anonymous French nun, enhanced it with many testimonies entitling it Edith Stein (editions du Seuil, La Vigne du Carmel collection; reprinted by Plon in 1984, with the title As Gold Purified by Fire, Edith Stein, 1891-1942, by Élisabeth de Miribel). We will make an abundant use of this reference work that remains irreplaceable because it sets out the historical truth, and will refer to it by simply indicating the pages. After the Second Vatican Council, all the biographies are marred by questionable interpretations. To re-establish the truth at last, the history of the Stein family, written by the saint, has been published by Editions du Cerf in 2001: The Life of a Jewish Family. The word Life will be used to refer to the original edition of this work, Volume 7 of the German edition of the Complete Works of Edith Stein.