An Academic’s Study of the Cross

Edith Stein may be considered a sleeping giant in the world of well-known Catholic saints. A German Jew, Edith Stein lived during the holocaust, a time when her cultural heritage placed her in danger – yet she gave courageous witness to the faith. 

She was born on October 12, 1891, in Breslau, formerly part of the German Empire and currently in Poland. Her birth was on the day of the Jewish Feast of Atonement. She was the youngest of 11 children and was very near to her mother’s heart.

Raised in a large Jewish family, Edith Stein’s mother did her best to instill faith in God in her children after the loss of her husband when Edith was two years old. Yet, by the time Edith turned fourteen, she decided to stop practicing her Jewish religion. 

Edith did well in school and enrolled at the University of Breslau in 1911, studying German and history. But her interest in philosophy and women’s issues became her focus as she became a radical suffragette. Later, Edith admitted she lost interest in the issue, yet her contribution to the writings on the feminine genius would later develop differently.

As a university student, World War I impacted Edith, leading her to volunteer as a Red Cross nurse from 1914 to 1915. During this time she resumed her education, attending the University of Göttingen and studied under the mentorship of Edmund Husserl, a mathematician and founding philosopher in the school of phenomenology.

Edith became immersed in a new horizon that was dawning: studies on the objectivity of subjective lived experience. As Husserl’s pupil and teaching assistant, Edith graduated with her degree in 1915 and pursued a doctorate in philosophy. Following Husserl, Edith transferred to the University of Freiburg, completing her dissertation on empathy and was awarded her doctorate in 1917. Soon events occurred, and individuals crossed her path that would change the course of her life.

One day, she went with a friend to Frankfurt and saw a woman entering the Cathedral with her shopping basket in hand, who knelt to say a prayer. She appeared to be leaving the busyness of the world to have an intimate conversation. Edith never forgot that moment of witnessing the quietness of individual prayer in contrast to crowds gathering for services, which she was familiar with.

Edith also befriended Husserl’s assistant, Adolf Reinach, and his wife. The couple had converted to Protestantism. When Reinach passed away, Edith nervously visited his widow and found a woman who embraced her cross. This was Edith’s first encounter with the strength God gives to those who carry suffering willingly. “It was the moment when my unbelief collapsed, and Christ began to shine His light on me – Christ in the mystery of the Cross," she said. 

In 1918, she sought a career as a professor, but women were not allowed within the profession. She continued writing and learning more about Christianity by reading the New Testament, the philosopher Kierkegaard, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and St. Teresa of Avila. By reading St. Teresa’s autobiography, she recognized the truth.

Edith Stein was baptized into the Catholic faith on January 1, 1922, and expressed that she felt Jewish again in her return to God. She was confirmed on the Feast of the Purification of Mary, a reference to the Old Testament, and she shared the news with her mother in person, “Mother, I am a Catholic.”

She desired to join the Carmelite order, but her spiritual mentors, Vicar-General Schwind of Speyer and Erich Przywara, SJ, advised her otherwise. She was encouraged to continue speaking on women’s issues. Edith explained that her idea of religious life was corrected from a fixation on exterior piety to an understanding of carrying the divine life into the world.

Additionally, Erich Przywara supported Edith’s efforts in writing her own thoughts on philosophy. She also translated the works of Thomas Aquinas and Cardinal John Henry Newman. With these endeavors, she understood “scholarship as a service to God.”

She wrote Potency and Act and in 1932 and accepted a lectureship at the Roman Catholic division of the German Institute for Educational Studies at the University of Münster. Her integration of faith and scholarship solidified as she sought to lead others to God.

However, the spread of Nazism forced her to stop teaching in 1933. She could now enter the Carmelites without reserve, stating, “Human activities cannot help us, but only the suffering of Christ. It is my desire to share in it.”

Edith Stein met with her mother for one last time in Breslau on her birthday, October 12, the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Her mother questioned her daughter on why Jesus made himself God, expressing the difficulty of their goodbye. Leaving the next day was a painful yet peaceful departure. She would write her mother weekly but only hear news from her sister Rosa. 

On October 14, Edith joined the Carmelite Convent of Cologne and was invested on April 15, 1934, receiving the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She remained hopeful in the promise of Christ after the passing of her mother in 1936 and took her final vows on April 21, 1938. 

At that time, threatened by the antisemitism of the Nazis, Sister Teresa was secretly moved to a Carmelite Convent in Echt in the Netherlands for her safety. Throughout her religious life in Cologne and Echt, she was permitted to resume academic studies. Her final work was The Science of the Cross in honor of St. John of the Cross, a friend of St. Teresa of Avila.

Sister Teresa and her sister Rosa, who was now Catholic and serving at the Echt Convent, were arrested by the Gestapo on August 2, 1942. Her last known words were said to Rosa: “Come, we are going for our people.”

During the early morning of August 7, nearly 1,000 Jews were taken to Auschwitz. It is probable that on August 9, Sister Teresa, Rosa, and many others were gassed.

St. John Paul II canonized Edith Stein on October 11, 1998. Along with Benedict of Nursia, Cyril and Methodius, Catherine of Siena, and Bridget of Sweden, she is one of six patron saints of Europe. Her feast day is August 9.