Edith Stein- from Judaism through Atheism to Catholicism

Recently, during a talk about Edith Stein on Radio Maria, the action of the Holy Spirit on her soul stood out to me. The speaker was asked about how she had become a Catholic and while her reading St Teresa's Vida is a well-known turning point in her life the previous gentle promptings of the spirit are less well-known. 

She had at a young age decided that she was an atheist though out of love and respect for her mother, who was a devout Jew, she continued to practice the prayers of the Jewish faith her mind had turned away from the Abrahamic faith. In her autobiography, Life in a Jewish Family, she speaks about how her experiences of the death of close family members had left her with burning questions about the afterlife and about what was important in this life. These burning questions were not satisfied until her conversion more than a decade later and spurred her on in her studies. She would late comment how she realised that all those who seek the Truth are in reality seeking God even if they do not know it.

She began studying psychology and history at the university in Breslau but her studies failed to respond her questions until a friend handed her Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations. Husserl was unique amongst his philosophy colleagues at the time because he spoke of the existence of objective truth and about each person's ability to come to know this objective truth. He himself has studied under another atypical philosopher for the time: Franz Brentano a rare Thomistic and a Catholic. These intellectual connections are not simply a matter of chance.

Husserl's writings awoke in Edith a passion, they responded to that deep desire for Truth, and she left Breslau moving to Gottingen to study under Husserl. She was one of a group of students that did this, moving from different parts of Germany to study under 'the Master' as they called Husserl. He was the only one speaking about objective truth, the only one speaking about the human capacity for coming to know that truth and the students flocked to his classes. Many of these students would later convert, as Husserl himself also did, many were Jewish, and some were atheists. Amongst the students, a deep friendship blossomed. As one of them wrote decades later remembering Edith, a common spirit united them, a common way of life, which was an openness to Truth. They would spend holidays together and Edith in particular maintained an extensive correspondence with several of them even after entering Carmel. 

One of them was Adolf Reinach, Husserl's assistant and the one that made 'the Master's ' writings more accessible to the other students. Edith later would step into this role and from it go well beyond what had been taught in Gottingen. Reinach had converted to Lutheranism and his wife Anna to Catholicism, their home was the friend's meeting place. His death during WWI was the first moment in which the spirit visible began prompting Edith's soul. She had been afraid to encounter Anna, unsure of each of their reactions at seeing the other but Edith was surprised when she finally saw her. Anna's peace at this heart-wrenching event struck Edith. It gave what she later described as a brief vision of something beyond the visible that she at the time could not really see or understand. This death, and this funeral, were so different from those experienced in childhood. Here the emphasis was on Adolf, the child of God and the afterlife was not an end but a new beginning. 

Some years later, on a trip to Frankfurt with another friend, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, who would later be Edith's baptism Godmother, they entered a Catholic church. While there a woman entered, clearly coming in from shopping in the market outside, and knelt praying for a few minutes. This simple act by an ordinary woman on a regular weekday touched her. Unlike at other places of worship she had seen where people just went to formal church services, here there was an instance of someone coming in simply to pray, but a prayer that seemed to Edith as that of two friends speaking. Again a glimpse of something beyond what could be seen, something she could not yet see or understand.

These small promptings were preparing her soul for the great encounter with Teresa that would happen at the home of Hedwig sometime later. This struck me as the way in which the Holy Spirit so often works,  through small promptings that prepare the way. He gentling prepares us to recognise, understand, and accept what He is asking of us, or offering us. God is aware that oftentimes we are not ready for the graces or the calling He has in store for us. Knowing this He prepares the way by gentling illuminating the path, so when the calling comes were are ready. Oftentimes, these prompting are barely noticeable. Often times we only realise they have happened after the fact. It is nothing else but the loving care given us by a loving Father who knows more deeply than we ourselves do.