Seeking Truth - Edith Stein

Last Thursday I attended the second Taizé evening service in St. Anna Parish in Bamberg. Fr. Johannes Trai chose Edith Stein as the saint for the service and the meditation on her delivered by Andrea Borneis struck me as something long known, yet long taken for granted:
Edith Stein was indeed a seeker. What she sought in her life was truth. But what, so we ask, what is truth?
Truth has kept humans busy with hard thinking ever since, and the definitions are many.
There are countless theories on truth in philosophy, mathematics, logic, there are understandings of truth in ancient history, medieval and in modern age, there is truth as defined by Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Nishida, Fromm, Foucault, Baudrillard, Ratzinger. Truth is dealt with in all religions, be it Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam.
And we, the people of the 21st century are having our problems with this term. It has long become a common understanding that truth is not unique, but that there is a plurality of truths. Every individual creates his or her own truth, which fits best, pleases most - so this common sense. Those in our societies, who go with Friedrich the Great, who claimed: "May everyone look into his own salvation" can be assured of being considered enlightened and tolerant ones. Others however withdraw to the position of evidence. Whatever there is no evidence for, is not real, does not exist in reality, is not true.
What is truth?
Edith Stein was born in 1891 as the youngest of 11 siblings. Se he grew up in her Jewish family but felt drawn to reason rather than to religion. She took up philosophy under Edmund Husserl in Freiburg but as a German Jew she was never given permit for her habilitation.
The fundamental change in her life took place when she got to read the autobiography of St. Theresa of Avila. In one night, one heartbeat, one breath she read the entire book and it hit her as an instant enlightenment, and so in the morning after she was done she cried out: "This is the truth!"
What had happened? The burning desire, her yearning for truth found fulfillment! She made the fascinating discovery that truth is not a system of rules and structures, it is not an idea, no theoretical construct, but truth is Christ. Christ, Son of God, Christ, divine love given to us, Christ, the path, the truth and the life. In her works Edith Stein emphasized later: "Who seeks the truth, seeks God, no matter if consciously or not." Edith Stein had found the truth, she had found God, or rather: She had allowed God to find her.