Edith Stein - Hymns and Chants

Edith Stein
1.1 Early life
Edith Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of
the Cross, OCD (German: Teresia Benedicta vom Kreuz,
Latin: Teresia Benedicta a Cruce) (12 October 1891 –
9 August 1942), was a German Jewish philosopher who
converted to the Roman Catholic Church and became a
Discalced Carmelite nun. She is a martyr and saint of the
Catholic Church.
Edith Stein was born in Breslau, in the Prussian Province
of Silesia, into an observant Jewish family. She was the
youngest of 11 children and was born on Yom Kippur,
the holiest day of the Hebrew calendar, which combined
to make her a favorite of her mother.<ref name=VNS
/[2] She was a very gifted child who enjoyed learning,
in a home where her mother encouraged critical thinking, and she greatly admired her mother’s strong religious
faith. By her teenage years, however, Edith had become
an atheist.
She was born into an observant Jewish family, but was an
atheist by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of
World War I, in 1915 she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in a hospital for the prevention of
disease outbreaks. After completing her doctoral thesis
in 1918 from the University of Göttingen, she obtained a Though her father died while she was young, her widowed mother was determined to give her children a thorteaching position at the University of Freiburg.
ough education and consequently sent Edith to study at
From reading the works of the reformer of the Carmelite
the University of Breslau.
Order, St. Teresa of Jesus, OCD, she was drawn to the
Catholic Faith. She was baptized on 1 January 1922 into
the Roman Catholic Church. At that point she wanted to 1.2 Academic career
become a Discalced Carmelite nun, but was dissuaded by
her spiritual mentors. She then taught at a Catholic school In 1916 Edith Stein received a doctorate of philosoof education in Münster.
phy from the University of Göttingen with a dissertation under the philosopher Edmund Husserl, Zum Problem der Einfühlung (On the Problem of Empathy). She
then became a member of the faculty at the University
of Freiburg, where she worked as a teaching assistant to
Husserl, who had transferred to that institution. In the
previous year she had worked with Martin Heidegger in
editing Husserl’s papers for publication, and Heidegger
succeeded her as a teaching assistant to Husserl in 1919.
Because she was a woman, Husserl did not support her
submitting her habilitational thesis (a prerequisite for an
academic chair) to the University of Freiburg in 1918.[3]
Her other thesis, Psychische Kausalität (Sentient Causality),[4] submitted at the University of Göttingen the following year, was likewise rejected.
As a result of the requirement of an extquotedblAryan
certificate extquotedbl for civil servants promulgated by
the Nazi government in April 1933 as part of its Law for
the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, she had
to quit her teaching position. She was admitted to the
Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne the following October. She received the religious habit of the Order as a novice in April 1934, taking the religious name
Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (“Teresa blessed by the
Cross”). In 1938 she and her sister Rosa, by then also a
convert and an extern Sister of the monastery, were sent
to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands for their
safety. Despite the Nazi invasion of that state in 1940,
they remained undisturbed until they were arrested by the
Nazis on 2 August 1942 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gas chamber on
9 August 1942.
While Stein had earlier contacts with Roman Catholicism, it was her reading of the autobiography of the mystic St. Teresa of Ávila during summer holidays in Bad
She was canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1998. Bergzabern in 1921 that caused her conversion. Baptized
She is one of the six patron saints of Europe, together on January 1, 1922, she gave up her assistantship with
with St. Benedict of Nursia, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Husserl to teach at the Dominican nuns’ school in Speyer
from 1923 to 1931. While there, she translated Thomas
St. Bridget of Sweden, and St. Catherine of Siena.
Aquinas' De Veritate (Of Truth) into German, familiarized herself with Roman Catholic philosophy in general,
and tried to bridge the phenomenology of her former
teacher, Husserl, to Thomism. She visited Husserl and
Heidegger at Freiburg in April 1929, the same month that
1 Life
Heidegger gave a speech to Husserl on his 70th birthday.
In 1932 she became a lecturer at the Catholic Church1
2
2 LEGACY AND VENERATION
affiliated Institute for Scientific Pedagogy in Münster, but
antisemitic legislation passed by the Nazi government
forced her to resign the post in 1933. In a letter to Pope
Pius XI, she denounced the Nazi regime and asked the
Pope to openly denounce the regime “to put a stop to this
abuse of Christ’s name.”
Her letter received no answer, and it is not known for certain whether the Pope ever read it.[5] However, in 1937
the Pope issued an encyclical written in German, Mit
Brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety), in which he
criticized Nazism, listed violations of the Concordat between Germany and the Church of 1933, and condemned
antisemitism.
1.3
Discalced Carmelite nun and martyr
Edith Stein entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery
St. Maria vom Frieden (Our Lady of Peace) in Cologne
in 1933 and was given the religious name of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. There she wrote her metaphysical Memorial to Edith Stein in Stella Maris Monastery, Haifa, Israel
book Endliches und ewiges Sein (Finite and Eternal Being), which attempted to combine the philosophies of St.
Thomas Aquinas and Husserl.
To avoid the growing Nazi threat, her Order transferred
her and her sister, Rosa, who was also a convert and an
extern sister of the Carmel, to the Discalced Carmelite
monastery in Echt, Netherlands. There she wrote Studie
über Joannes a Cruce: Kreuzeswissenschaft (“Studies on
John of the Cross: The Science of the Cross”). In her
testament of 6 June 1939 she wrote: “I beg the Lord to
take my life and my death … for all concerns of the sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary and the holy [C]hurch, especially for the preservation of our holy [O]rder, in particular the Carmelite monasteries of Cologne and Echt, The Martyrdom of Edith Stein depicted in a stained glass work
as atonement for the unbelief of the Jewish People, and by Alois Plum, in Kassel, Germany
that the Lord will be received by [H]is own people and
[H]is kingdom shall come in glory, for the salvation of
Germany and the peace of the world, at last for my loved 2 Legacy and veneration
ones, living or dead, and for all God gave to me: that none
of them shall go astray.”
Edith Stein was beatified as a martyr on 1 May 1987 in
Ultimately, she was not safe in the Netherlands. The Cologne, Germany by Pope St. John Paul II and then
Dutch Bishops’ Conference had a public statement read in canonized by him 11 years later on 11 October 1998
all the churches of the nation on 20 July 1942 condemn- in Vatican City. The miracle which was the basis for
ing Nazi racism. In a retaliatory response on 26 July 1942 her canonization was the cure of Teresa Benedicta Mcthe Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss- Carthy, a little girl who had swallowed a large amount
Inquart ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts who had of paracetamol (acetaminophen), which causes hepatic
previously been spared. The Stein sisters were conse- necrosis. Her father, Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy,
quently arrested at the monastery. On 7 August, early in a priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, immethe morning, 987 Jews were deported to the Auschwitz diately rounded up relatives and prayed for St. Teresa’s
concentration camp. It was probably on 9 August that Sr. intercession.[8] Shortly thereafter the nurses in the intenTeresa Benedicta of the Cross, her sister, and many more sive care unit saw her sit up completely healthy. Dr.
of her people were killed in a mass gas chamber.[6][7]
Ronald Kleinman, a pediatric specialist at Massachusetts
3
3 Controversy as to the cause of her
murder
The beatification of St. Teresa as a martyr generated
criticism. Critics argued that she was murdered because
she was Jewish by birth, rather than for her Catholic
Faith,[15] and that, in the words of Daniel Polish, the beatification seemed to “carry the tacit message encouraging
conversionary activities” because “official discussion of
the beatification seemed to make a point of conjoining
Stein’s Catholic faith with her death with 'fellow Jews’ in
Auschwitz”.[16][17] The position of the Catholic Church
is that St. Teresa also died because of the Dutch episcopacy’s public condemnation of Nazi racism in 1942; in
other words, that she died because of the moral teaching
of the Church and is thus a true martyr.[6][18]
4 Writings that have been translated into English
Memorial to Edith Stein in Prague, Czech Republic
General Hospital in Boston who treated Teresa Benedicta, testified about her recovery to Church tribunals,
stating: “I was willing to say that it was miraculous.”[8]
McCarthy would later attend St. Teresa’s canonization.
Today there are many schools named in tribute to
her, for example in Darmstadt, Germany,[9] Hengelo,
Netherlands,[10] and Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.[11]
Also named for her are a women’s dormitory at the
University of Tübingen[12] and a classroom building at
The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre published a book in
2006 titled Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 19131922, in which he contrasted her living of her own personal philosophy with Martin Heidegger, whose actions
during the Nazi era, according to MacIntyre, suggested a
“bifurcation of personality.”[13]
• Life in a Jewish Family: Her Unfinished Autobiographical Account, translated by Sister Josephine
Koeppel, O.C.D., from The Collected Works of Edith
Stein, Volume 1, ICS Publications, 1986
• On the Problem of Empathy, translated by Waltraut
Stein, from The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Volume 3, ICS Publications, 1989
• Essays on Woman, translated by Freda Mary Oben,
1996
• The Hidden Life, translated by Sister Josephine
Koeppel, O.C.D., 1993[19]
• The Science of the Cross, translated by Sister
Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D. The Collected Works of
Edith Stein, Volume Six, 1983, 2002, 2011, ICS
Publications
• Knowledge and Faith
• Finite and Eternal Being: An Attempt to an Ascent to
the Meaning of Being
• Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, translated by Mary Catharine Baseheart, S.C.N., and
Marianne Sawicki, 2000
In 2009 her bust was installed at the Walhalla Memorial near Regensburg, Germany. In June 2009 the International Association for the Study of the Philosophy
of Edith Stein (IASPES) was founded, and held its first
international conference at Maynooth University, Ireland
in order to advance the philosophical writings of Edith
Stein.[14]
• An Investigation Concerning the State, translated by
Marianne Sawicki, 2006, ICS Publications
On 6 June 2014, the 70th anniversary of D-Day, a bell
dedicated to her was named by Prince Charles at Bayeux
Cathedral.
• Spirituality of the Christian Woman,[21] from The
Collected Works of Edith Stein, Volume Two, Essays on Woman, 1987, ICS Publications
• Martin Heidegger’s Existential Philosophy,[20] translated by Mette Lebech, 2007
• Self-Portrait in Letters, 1916-1942
4
7
EXTERNAL LINKS
• Potency and Act, Studies Toward a Philosophy of Be- [14] http://www.edithsteincircle.com
ing Translated by Walter Redmond, from The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Volume Eleven, 1998, [15] Abraham Foxman, Leon Klenicki (October 1998). “The
Canonization of Edith Stein: An Unnecessary Problem”,
2005,2009, ICS Publications
Anti-Defamation League.
5
[16] Harry James Cargas (ed.) (1994). The Unnecessary
Problem of Edith Stein, Studies in the Shoah Volume IV,
University Press of America.
See also
• Book of the First Monks
[17] Thomas A. Idinopulos (Spring 1998). “The Unnecessary
Problem of Edith Stein”. Journal of Ecumenical Studies.
• Carmelite Rule of St. Albert
• Constitutions of the Carmelite Order
[18] “Canonization Homily”. Vatican.va. Retrieved 2012-1226.
• Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
[19] http://www.karmel.at/ics/edith/stein.html
• Personalism
[20] http://eprints.nuim.ie/1005/1/Mette__MPP_issue_4_
2007.pdf
• Phenomenology
[21] http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/
SPIRWOM.HTM
6
References
[1] “Patron Saints Index: Saint Teresa Benedicta of the
Cross” Accessed 26 January 2007.
[2] “Teresa Benedict of the Cross Edith Stein”. Vatican News
Service.
[3] Sollte die akademische laufbahn für Frauen geöffnet werden. Edmund Husserl und Edith Stein. Edith-SteinJahrbuch. tome 2. 1996. p. 370. |first1= missing |last1=
in Authors list (help)
[4] Lebech, Mette. “Study Guide to Edith Stein’s Philosophy
of Psychology and the Humanities”. Faculty of Philosophy, NUIM, Maynooth.
[5] Popham, Peter (February 21, 2003). “This Europe: Letters reveal Auschwitz victim’s plea to Pope Pius XI”. London: The Independent. Retrieved 2003-02-21.
[6]
[7] Scaperlanda, María Ruiz (2001). Edith Stein: St. Teresia
Benedicta of the Cross. Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday
Visitor Press. p. 154.
[8] “Jewish-born nun gassed by Nazis is declared saint; Prayer
to Edith Stein sparked tot’s 'miraculous’ recovery”. The
Toronto Star. May 24, 1997. pp. A22.
[9] “Edith-Stein-Schule”. Ess-darmstadt.de.
Retrieved 2012-12-26.
2012-12-04.
[10] “Hogeschool Edith Stein”. Edith.nl. 2012-12-12. Retrieved 2012-12-26.
[11] “St. Edith Stein Elementary School”. Dpcdsb.org. Retrieved 2012-12-26.
[12] “Edith-Stein-Studentinnen-Wohnheim”.
heim.de. Retrieved 2012-12-26.
Edith-stein-
[13] MacIntyre, Alasdair (2006). Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913-1922. Rowman and Littlefield. p. 5.
ISBN 9780742559530.
7 External links
• Index of Saints
• Edith-Stein homepage of the Diocese of Speyer
• Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein
• Associazione Italiana Edith Stein onlus
• Essays by Edith Stein at Quotidiana.org
• Edith Stein at Find a Grave
• Letter of St. Teresa to Pope Pius XI of 1933
5
Edith Stein in a relief by Heinrich Schreiber in the Church of Our
6
8 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES
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