Edith Stein’s three beings

Growing up in a devout Jewish family, Edith Stein (1891–1942) was the youngest of eleven children. She was a brilliant student who excelled at high school and university, and went on to study under the guidance of the famous European philosopher Edmund Husserl. Much to the dismay of her mother, she converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1922 and entered the Carmelite Convent at Cologne–Lindenhall in 1933.

As Edith Stein the philosopher, she lectured and wrote on many topics. Yet as Sr Benedicta of the Cross, she humbly taught primary school religious education. During her life, the Nazi war machine was building, leading to the murder of millions of Jews. In the early 1940s, baptised Jews were also targeted, and Stein was arrested on 2 August 1942, dying at Auschwitz just a week later on 9 August. In 1987, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was beatified as a martyr.

The three beings

Stein suggests that each human person experiences or engages with three different ‘beings’: the fleeting, the enduring and the eternal.

The first being, she says, is our fleeting being, experienced in the frazzled elements of a tension-filled life spent hurtling from moment to moment. This being challenges us, highlighting the transience of life and the irrational elements of our existence. The hallmark of this fleeting being is an anxiety that threatens to overtake us, engulfing everything in a sea of pain.

Stein wisely notes that we all feel harried from time to time. Sometimes we are the cause of our fleeting experience, and at other times an external conflict or situation triggers it. The chief characteristic of our fleeting being is stress.

To balance this fleeting being, Stein writes, we have our enduring being. This is a knowledge that holds us fast, steadies our steps, and springs us from the trap of thinking that the tension-filled, fleeting being is our only reality. Our enduring being stabilises our life and its agenda.

Stein suggests that for many people, the fleeting being is balanced by corrective influences in life, so that the enduring being is also seen in the steadfast care given by friends or family members, for instance, which can anchor our lives and relieve the stress. There are many people who might provide a stabilising presence when our lives are hectic. The Catholic prayer for a deceased loved one says that ‘our uneven path was made smoother by their passing feet’. For Stein, this assistance is part of our enduring being.

We don’t engage with our eternal being through philosophical knowledge but by sheer and simple faith.

The third category is the eternal being, God’s presence in our lives. The eternal being is an overarching presence that answers the riddles of our lives and oversees the juggle of our fleeting and enduring beings. Sacred Scripture calls this presence ‘God’s saving light’. God’s word steers us towards truth.

Stein writes that we don’t engage with our eternal being through philosophical knowledge but by sheer and simple faith. The image of eternal being, she writes, is a child’s security in holding the hand of a strong parent to pilot the way ahead.

Powerful Latin phrases

Stein especially treasured two Latin phrases. The first alerts us to her eternal being, her very private connection to her God. The second demonstrates her enduring being, a steadfast strength that challenges even the most evil opponent.

St Benedicta joined saints like Bernard of Clairvaux and John Henry Newman in writing about a certain secret shared only with God, which no one else could get near. When she was asked for an explanation of her conversion to Christianity, she said, Secretum meum mihi,’ Latin for ‘My secret is my own.’ In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus suggests three secret actions that the Father sees and rewards (Matthew 6:1–18). Stein’s special relationship with God, her eternal being, was absolute and unshakable. Her example invites us to foster our own secret connections with God.

When the German officer greeted her with the Nazi salute, she immediately acknowledged her own superior: ‘Laudetur Jesus Christus!’ Praised be Jesus Christ!

But Stein’s eternal being was not just a private matter. Her strength of faith was vividly displayed in a critical encounter in her last days. When ordered to attend the Gestapo offices in Maastricht, Netherlands, the German officer greeted her with his regular Nazi salute. Sr Benedicta, to the surprise of all, immediately acknowledged her own superior: ‘Laudetur Jesus Christus!’ Praised be Jesus Christ!

Her sheer and simple faith in God’s word guided her life and barricaded her against any evil force.

In his sermon on Jewish Zeal, A Pattern for Christians, St John Henry Newman, whose letters Stein translated, preaches that zeal is an essential duty, as important as prayer and praise. Zeal demands ‘heroic determination to yield Him service at whatever sacrifice … an energetic resolve to push through all difficulties, were they mountains, when His eye or hand but gives the sign.’

Stein displayed her Jewish zeal in the face of great oppression.

Her last week

Stein was arrested on a Sunday and was most probably executed the next Sunday. When she and her sister Rose were heading to their death, Edith said, ‘Come! We are going for our people.’

In the ‘cattle truck’ railway carriage that transported them to Auschwitz were several Jewish families, many of them teenagers and children. They travelled with a saint, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, and died alongside her.

During this fateful week, the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ (6 August) was celebrated on a Thursday in 1942. Stein and other Jewish captives were in transit on that day.

For a Carmelite sister, the Transfiguration has special significance. It recalls Jesus conversing with the famous Jewish figures of Moses and Elijah. He is speaking with these great prophets about his ‘exodus’, his departure, which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem (Luke 9:21).

The next day, Friday 7 August, she spoke from the door of her cramped carriage with a postal employee, Johannes Wieners. She told him, ‘We are riding to our death.’ Stein was well aware of the exodus she and her companions would shortly accomplish.

St Teresa Benedicta’s special story encourages us to embrace the secret of our eternal being: God’s saving presence in our lives.

The figure of Elijah resonates with the life of Edith Stein. He learnt that the Lord’s strength was superior to all the power of any human undertaking (1 Kings 18:10), and that the power of prayer could transform a deathly situation (17:22). Against his opponents, Elijah trusted that God’s power would answer his prayers. The ‘frazzled’ people of Israel were to see in him a champion, one who would conquer the enemy.

With Stein, there was no apparent victory over the evil of her times. She, like Jesus, was given into the hands of her oppressors and suffered a horrible death.

This week, we recall the impact of Stein’s life, her Jewish heritage and her encounter with Jesus Christ at a pivotal moment in world history.

She personally experienced the fleeting elements of our being and displayed her enduring qualities with a real zeal for life. Ultimately, though, St Teresa Benedicta’s special story encourages us to embrace the secret of our eternal being: God’s saving presence in our lives.