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The Life and Thought of St. Edith Stein

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Dr. Freda Mary Oben's book, The Life and Thought of St. Edith Stein, portrays St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross as a woman whose philosophical-theological creativity was not a system of belief, but a way of life. (Oben, 2001, 21) Oben chronicles Edith's life from early childhood, through her growth as a brilliant scholar and Catholic convert, to her death in Auschwitz. The author uses quotes from Edith Stein's original writings and shares interviews from extended family members and as well religious who lived with Sr. Teresa Benedicta in the Carmelite convent.
In the first part of the book we learn that St. Benedicta of the Cross was born in 1891 in Breslau to a large family with a Jewish heritage. Edith was a tremendous scholar who studied phenomenology with Edmund Husserl at a time when Germany was alive with religious revival and intellectual debates by humanists. In 1915 her education was interrupted with the outbreak of WWI. She was profoundly affected by the war; for six months served in the Red Cross ministering to wounded soldiers with infectious diseases. In 1916, Edith graduated summa cum laude with her doctoral dissertation on the nature of empathy. The following year this young phenomenologist's passion for Christianity was intensified in witnessing a dear Christian friend, Anna Reinach, possess a deep strength and `kinship with the crucified Christ' after the loss of her husband on the front line. (Oben, 18)
While philosophy had always been her locus of truth for human formation, Edith writes to a friend, "God is truth. All who seek truth seek God, whether this is clear to them or not" . Three years later Edith reads the entire book of the Life of Teresa of Avila in one night. She closes the book and states, "That is the truth." She is so inspired by Teresa's teachings that Christ becomes the paradigm in her philosophy of the person. Edith converts to Catholicism and becomes a leader in the Catholic women's movement. Her later writings on Christian Philosophy, profoundly influenced by St. Thomas Aquinas, provide an interconnection of her extensive background in phenomenological method with Thomism. She writes, "the way of faith gives us more than the way of philosophical knowledge; it gives us the God of personal nearness, the loving and merciful one, and a certainty such as no natural knowledge can give." (Oben, 52)
The second part of the book details Edith Stein's writings on the philosophy of women, the person and the person in community. It was helpful for me to compliment this book with other translations of Edith's original works: On the Problem of Empathy (Stein, W, 1989), Sentient Causality and Individual and Community (Baseheart, Sawicki, 2000). It becomes evident that Edith Stein's early studies in psychology and phenomenology offer great value to her later works
In the final section of the book, Oben's personal perspective as a convert from Judaism, offers an insightful awareness of the Jewish community's questioning of Stein's beatification. In the end, Oben writes, "Edith died as a Jewess and as a Christian, in loyalty to her blood and to her faith. Her life was given for the Jews in a pure love, and this she was able to do through her Christian faith." In presenting Edith Stein as a fully integrated personality, I am not surprised that in the title Dr. Oben refers to our saint as `Saint Edith Stein' as opposed to using her Carmelite name Sr. Benedicta of the Cross. While Oben's writings provide a plethora of information and details of St. Benedicta's life and thought, I found Dr. Oben's style of writing sometimes a challenge to follow possibly due her extensive knowledge of Edith's life and my lack of background. I frequently found myself flipping back to locate earlier introductions of people influential in Edith's life. I would recommend this for anyone interested in an getting to know Edith Stein and how she evolved during the course of her short lifetime.