Stein, saintly Carmelite, profound philosopher and brilliant writer, had a great
influence on the women of her time, and is having a growing influence in the intellectual
and philosophical circles of todays Germany and of the whole world. She is an
inspiration to all Christians whose heritage is the Cross, and her life was offered for
her own Jewish people in their sufferings and persecutions.
Born on October 12, 1891, of Jewish parents, Siegried Stein and Auguste Courant, in
Breslau, Germany, Edith Stein from her earliest years showed a great aptitude for
learning, and by the time of the outbreak of World War I, she had studied philology and
philosophy at the universities of Breslau and Goettingen.
After the war, she resumed her higher studies at the University of Freiburg and was
awarded her doctorate in philosophy Suma Cum Laude. She later became the assistant
and collaborator of Professor Husserl, the famous founder of phenomenology, who greatly
appreciated her brilliant mind.
In the midst of all her studies, Edith Stein was searching not only for the truth, but
for Truth itself and she found both in the Catholic Church, after reading the
autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila. She was baptized on New Years Day, 1922.
After her conversion, Edith spent her days teaching, lecturing, writing and
translating, and she soon became known as a celebrated philosopher and author, but her own
great longing was for the solitude and contemplation of Carmel, in which she could offer
herself to God for her people. It was not until the Nazi persecution of the Jews brought
her public activities and her influence in the Catholic world to a sudden close that her
Benedictine spiritual director gave his approval to her entering the Discalced Carmelie
Nuns cloistered community at Cologne-Lindenthal on 14 October 1933. The following
April, Edith received the Habit of Carmel and the religious name of "Teresia
Benedicta ac Cruce," and on Easter Sunday, 21 April 1935, she made her Profession of
When the Jewish persecution increased in violence and fanaticism, Sister Teresa
Benedicta soon realized the danger that her presence was to the Cologne Carmel, and she
asked and received permission to transfer to a foreign monastery. On the night of 31
December 1938, she secretly crossed the border into Holland where she was warmly received
in the Carmel of Echt. There she wrote her last work, The Science of the Cross.
Her own Cross was just ahead of her, for the Nazis had invaded neutral Holland, and
when the Dutch bishops issued a pastoral letter protesting the deportation of the Jews and
the expulsion of Jewish children from the Catholic school system, the Nazis arrested all
Catholics of Jewish extraction in Holland. Edith was taken from the Echt Carmel on 2
August 1942, and transported by cattle train to the death camp of Auschwitz, the
conditions in the box cars being so inhuman that many died or went insane on the four day
trip. She died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz on 9 August 1942.
We no longer seek her on earth, but with God Who accepted her sacrifice and will give
its fruit to the people for whom she prayed, suffered, and died. In her own words:
"Once can only learn the science of the Cross by feeling the Cross in ones own
person." We can say that in the fullest sense of the word, Sister Teresa was
"Benedicta a Cruce" -- blessed by the Cross.
Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross on 1 May 1987, and
canonizes her on 11 October 1998.