Thoughts for the week

Edith Stein: witness to spiritual freedom

They followed their Conscience to the point of death: Edith Stein. Father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ speaks in the contribution of the Catholic Church through the Carmelite nun, who lives with her and Dying her spiritual freedom testified.

Women were, for centuries, their lives are not free to design. They were completely dependent on men. Men took wives, parents married their daughters. The real man was the man, the woman had to obey. The Bible also seemed to have this view for ever to be represented, because it is said: The woman should her man be. Only a few Herrscherinnen or some courtesans enjoyed a certain independence. In the course of the last few centuries, were women more and more the possibility of your life to determine for yourself. They took and are taking part in the Befreiungsgeschichte of humanity. Long opposed to the Church of this story. But there is in it also a witness, the just from the Christian Faith contributed to Befreiungsgeschichte of the people and especially the women

Freedom from Gewissensüberzeugung

A witness of this exemption was in 20. Century, Edith Stein. They won their freedom of independent Thinking and the liberating Faith in Jesus Christ. The young Edith Stein, of Jewish house in Silesia, and studied philosophy, sought their own Denkweg, met after many mental wanderings of the great mystic Teresa of Avila and became a Christian. You taught then Religion in Speyer, Germany and was a Professor in Münster. From there she wrote to Pope Pius XII, he should but against Hitler’s position. Given the Nazibedrohung as was born a Jew of the academic Institute not by their presence to harm, divorcing you from the service and joined as sister Teresa Benedicta of the cross in the Carmel of Cologne. To this monastery from the Nazis to protect, settled in the Netherlands. But also here, the antizionistische Arm of Hitler. Edith Stein was in 1942 along with her sister Rosa into the concentration camp of Auschwitz and into the Gas-driven.

Edith Stein is a witness of spiritual freedom from Gewissensüberzeugung. So, it is a Symbol of Modernity. Through the centuries, if not millennia, people were to the lifestyle and Religion of their family bound. You had to adjust, was not allowed to stepping out of line. Edith Stein cared. Also when you are at your Judaism depended, but it was of the Jews Jesus of Nazareth was more confident and was himself a Christian. Your own mother held the Conversion to the Catholic Church for a decrease of the ancestral Religion, for apostasy. This view also hurt the daughter as the mother. But you followed your Conscience and testified to their spiritual freedom.

For the Suffering of their people

Edith Stein saw their determination in their hearts the Suffering of their people, to accept, to God as atonement for the sins of the Nazis to offer. You wrote in 1938: “I must again and again of Queen Esther think that is just about it from your people was taken to for the people before the king to stand. I am a very poor and powerless little Esther. But the king, the me has chosen, is infinitely great and merciful.“1 you remained your Jewish people in the heart, but also your Conscience to be faithful. Because of their prominent position in society, she would perhaps before the destruction can be saved. But Edith Stein had already, in her will of 1939 is written: “even now, I take the death that God holds for me, in perfect submission to his most Holy will with joy receive. I pray to the Lord that he is my life and death would like to accept to his honour and glory … so that the Lord of the His recorded will, and his Kingdom come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and for the peace of the world, finally for the members of my family“2. Edith Stein always felt as members of their people. One of her last Statements to her sister was: “Come on, we go for our people”3.

Edith Stein is a witness of the real feminism, of spiritual freedom and independence. This inner freedom led them ultimately in the death and resurrection.

1Edith stone works, ed. by L. Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, Bd. 9: self-portrait in letters, Freiburg i. Brsg. 1977, letter from 31. October 1938, P. 121.
2Edith-stone-complete edition, ed. by M. A. Neyer and H.-B. Gerl-Falkovitz, Bd. 1: From the life of a Jewish family and other autobiographical posts, Freiburg i. Brsg. In 2002, Testament, P. 375.
3Andreas Uwe Müller, Maria Amata Neyer: Edith Stein the life of an extraordinary woman, Düsseldorf 2002, p. 279.

Father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ in 1936 in Bad Rappenau born. After 1957 he the Jesuit order has occurred, he studied in 1959, philosophy in Pullach near Munich, and theology in Innsbruck and Tübingen. 1968 was his ordination to the priesthood. Father Eberhard von Gemmingen SJ was a member of the Ecumenical Laienbewegung action 365, bischöflicher appointee to the ZDF and head of the German editors of Radio Vatican. Since 2010 he has been the Fundraiser of the German Jesuits.

Church responsibility: Dr. Silvia Becker, Catholic Hörfunkbeauftragte and Alfred Herrmann