About the saint...

A brief biography of Edith Stein

Edith Stein, Virgin and Martyr, was born in 1891 in Breslau, Germany (now Poland). She was the youngest child of eleven children of a very devout Jewish family. She was an outst​​anding student and was well versed in philosophy with a particular interest in phenomenology. Eventually she became interested in the Catholic Faith, and in 1922, she was baptized at the Cathedral Church in Cologne, Germany. Eleven years later Edith entered the Cologne Carmel. Because of the ramifications of politics in Germany, Edith, whose name in religion was Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was sent to the Carmel at Echt, Holland. When the Nazis conquered Holland, Teresa was arrested, and, with her sister Rose, was sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Teresa died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of fifty-one when she refused to deny her Jewish heritage. In 1987, she was beatified in the Cologne cathedral by Pope John Paul II. She was canonized on October 11, 1998.​

The darker it becomes around us , the more we ought to 
open our hearts to the light that comes 
from on high. -- Edith Stein

​

Excerpted from an address delivered by the (then) President of Holy Cross, the Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J. on the occasion of the formal dedication of Edith Stein Hall, 6 May 1988.

See original: https://college.holycross.edu/faculty/vlapomar/hiatt/estein.htm

In her short 50 years, she was a remarkably successful woman in a male dominated world. became a convert to Catholicism and a devout Carmelite nun who, as anti-Semitism spread and intensified in Germany and Holland, wished to offer her life for world peace and the preservation of her Jewish people.

Academic Career

She was a brilliant student, first enrolling at the University of Breslau in 1911, and later transferring to the University of Gottingen to pursue her studies under the mentorship of the famed founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. Husserl eventually chose Edith Stein to be his teaching assistant at the University of Freiburg, and declared her to be the best doctoral student he ever had -- even more able than Heidegger who was also a pupil of Husserl's at the same time 
Edith was. In 1916 she completed her doctoral dissertation and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree summa cum laude.

As the draft began calling up many of her friends for service in World War I, Edith volunteered together with a number of other women students for duty in military hospitals. She requested an assignment in a hospital for infectious diseases, and devotedly cared for soldiers of the Austrian Army who were suffering from typhus, dysentery and cholera. On completion of her term as a volunteer at the military hospital, Edith was awarded the medal of valor in recognition of 
her selfless service.

She next became Husserl's assistant at the University of Freiburg, where he had been called to a Full Professorship, and there her religious struggle began as, in her pursuit of truth, she turned to reading the New Testament and began her gradual movement back towards a faith which she had earlier abandoned.

Conversion to Catholicism

Moved by the writings of St. Teresa of Ávila, Edith converted to Catholicism and was baptized on January 1, 1922.

On January 1, 1922 -- New Year's Day -- Edith Stein was baptized a Catholic, taking the name Teresa as her baptismal name. She continued to attend the Synagogue with her mother, praying the psalms of the service.

At this point in her life, Edith discontinued her scholarly career as a student and accepted a position teaching German at the Dominican Sisters' school in Speyer. Here, for eight years, she labored as a teacher, and balanced her day between work and prayer. She was known to be a sympathetic and accommodating teacher who worked hard to convey her material in a clear and systematic manner, and whose concern extended beyond the transmission of knowledge to include 
the formation of the whole person. Sne believed education to be an apostolic work.

Throughout this period, Edith continued her philosophical writings and translations, and took on speaking engagements that took her to cities such as Heidelberg, Zurich, Salzburg. In the course of her lectures she frequently addressed herself to the role and significance of women in contemporary life as she developed themes treating "The Ethos of Women's Professions," "The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to God and Nature," "The Spirituality of Christian Woman," "Fundamental Principles of Women's Education," "Problems of Women's Education," "The Church, Woman and Youth," and "The Significance of Woman's Intrinsic Value in National Life. "A reading of the texts of these lectures clearly reveals Edith Stein's radical feminist stance and her strong commitment to the recognition and advancement of women, and to the value she attached to the mature Christian life of a woman as a source of healing for the world.

In 1931 Edith left the convent school to devote herself full-time to writing and the publication of her works. In 1932, she accepted a lectureship position at the University of Munster, but a year later was told that she would have to give up her position because of her Jewish background. A sympathetic university administration suggested that she work on her projects privately until the situation in Germany improved, but Edith declined. An offer to teach in South America was also made, but after giving the matter serious consideration, Edith became convinced that the time had come for her to fulfill her ambition to enter the convent.

Life as a Nun

On October 14, 1933, at age 42, Edith Stein entered the Carmelite Convent in Cologne and took the religious name, Teresa, Benedicta a Cruce -- Teresa, Blessed of the Cross, reflecting her special devotion to the Passion of Christ and her gratitude for the spiritual patronage of Teresa of Avila.

She wrote extensively on philosophy and theology, contributing significantly to Catholic thought.  dith continued to study and write, completing the text of her book, Finite and Being, her magnum opus, authoring Ways of Knowing God and The Symbolic Theology of the Areopagite, a two-volume translation of St. Thomas' works, and working on The Science of the Cross. 

Martyrdom and Canonization

By 1938 the situation in Germany had grown steadily worse, and the S.S. attack of November 8 (Kristallnacht) removed any lingering doubts about the true state of affairs of Jewish citizens. The Convent Prioress arranged for Edith to be transferred to the Dutch convent at Echt, and on New Years Eve, 31 December 1938, Edith Stein was driven across the border under the cover of darkness to Holland. There, at the Convent in Echt, Edith composed three acts of self-oblation, offering her life up for the Jewish people, the averting of war (i.e., peace) and for the sanctification of her Carmelite family. She then settled into a life of teaching the postulants Latin and writing a book on St. John of the Cross.

As the crematoria and gas chambers rose in the East, Edith, along with thousands of Jews in Holland, began receiving citations from the S.S. (Hitler's "Protection Squadron") in Maastricht and the Council for Jewish Affairs in Amsterdam.  She applied for a Swiss visa, along with her sister Rosa who had joined her at Echt, that they might transfer to the Carmelite Convent of Le Paquier. The Le Paquier community informed the Echt community that while they would be glad to receive Edith, they could not accommodate Rosa. This was unacceptable to Edith, and she refused to go to Switzerland preferring to remain with her sister at Echt. Determined to finish The Science of the Cross, she used every available moment for research, often working to the point of exhaustion.

In the Dutch Carmelite community at Echt, Edith Stein's protection against the growing persecution of Jews was only temporary. While the Nazi policy of exterminating Jews was rapidly implemented once Holland was occupied, Jews who professed Christianity were initially left alone. However, when the Catholic bishops in the Netherlands issued a pastoral letter in which they sharply protested against the deportation of the Jews, the Nazi rulers reacted by ordering the extermination of baptized Jews as well.

That is the reason why on Sunday, August 2, 1942, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, after Edith Stein had spent the day in her usual manner, praying and working on the unfinished manuscript of her book on St. John of the Cross. At 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon, the S.S. officers came to the Convent and led away Edith and Rosa Stein. Frightened by the crowd and unable to absorb fully the situation, Rosa began to grow disoriented. A witness has related that Edith took Rosa by the hand and said reassuringly, "Come Rosa, We're going for our people.  "Together they walked to the corner and got into the waiting police van. There are a number of  eye witness accounts of Edith's behavior during her days of imprisonment at Amersfoort and  Westerbork, a central detention camp in the north of Holland -- her silence, her calm, her composure, her self-possession, her comforting and consoling of other women, her caring for the little ones, washing them and combing their hair and making sure that they were fed.

In the middle of the night before the dawn of August 7, 1942, the Westerbork prisoners, including Edith Stein, the Carmelite nun, were placed in trains and deported to Auschwitz.

In 1950, the Dutch Gazette published the official list of names of all Jews who had been deported from Holland on 7 August 1942. There were no survivors from the transport. Among the listing is the following entry:

• Europe (one of six)**
• loss of parents
• converted Jews
• martyrs
• World Youth Day 2002 (one of nine)***

** There are six patron saints of Europe in Roman Catholicism, five of them so declared by Pope John Paul II between 1980 and 1999: Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). The exception is Benedict of Nursia, who had already been declared "Patron Saint of all Europe" by Pope Paul VI in 1964.

*** Pope John Paul II declared 9 patron saints for World Youth Day 2002:

• St. Agnes of Rome
• St. Pedro Calungsod
• St. Josephine Bakhita
• St. Thérèse of Lisieux
• St. Kateri Tekakwitha
• Bl. Andrew of Phú Yên
• Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati
• Bl. Marcel Callo
• Bl. Francisco Castelló Aleu