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.
This realization changed Edith Stein's life radically, meaning a radical chance in the very sense of the word, as "radical" etymologically derives from the Latin word "radix" which is "the root". Her life changed from its very roots as Edith Stein did not go for "good enough", but chose to uncompromisingly go for all. She converted to Catholicism on the first of January 1922 and became a Carmelite nun later.
She followed her newly found path strongly and firmly ever since then. The overwhelming love she had found must have been unspeakably precious, all the more after those long years of struggling and fighting, those years of being far from God. Suddenly she had allowed God to find her, had opened up to him, lovingly, trustingly doing what the word creed so wonderfully expresses: The Latin "credere" derives from "cor-dare" which translates to "giving one's heart". Indeed she gave her whole heart, knowing though that such always goes with pain.
As a German Jew finally the inevitable happened: In 1933 under the Pogrom Laws she first was imposed a ban on teaching. On 2nd of August 1942 she was arrested by the Gestapo, was brought to the Durchgangslager Westerbork, was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 7th and was murdered in the gas chambers there on August 9, 1942.
Even in facing the Holocaust Edith Stein remained outstandingly peaceful and imperturbable. She was sheltered in the strength of her faith, in the precious treasure of the truth she had found. She was safe in God's divine love, Christ, the path, the truth and the life.
What is truth?
Are we still struggling? Seeking? Do we still yearn to find the truth? Or are we already content with what well fits us already, what pleases us enough? What is truth?
Edith Stein says: "Who seeks the truth, seeks God, no matter if consciously or not."
May we not lose the openness to be found by God.