Teresia Renata Posselt - Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite

ICS Publications Washington, D.C.

Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc. 2005 ICS Publications
2131 Lincoln Road NE
Washington, DC 20002-1151
800-832-8489
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Typesetting by Stephen Tiano Page Design & Production Typeset and produced in the U.S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publications Data

Teresia de Spiritu Sancto, Sister, O.D.C., b. 1891.
[Edith Stein, Philosophin und Karmelitin. English]
Edith Stein : the life of a philosopher and Carmelite : authorized and

revised biography by Her Prioress / Sister Teresia Renata Posselt ; text, commentary and explanatory notes by Susanne Batzdorff, Josephine Koeppel, John Sullivan ; in collaboration with Maria Amata Neyer, Cologne Carmel.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-935216-36-7 (alk. paper)

1. Stein, Edith, Saint, 1891-1942. 2. Christian philosophers GermanyBiography. 3. Carmelite NunsGermanyBiography.
4. Christian martyrsGermanyBiography. 5. Catholic converts GermanyBiography. 6. PhilosophersGermanyBiography. I. Batzdorff, Susanne M. II. Koeppel, Josephine. III. Sullivan, John, 1942- IV. Title.
BX4705.S814T47 2004
282'.092dc22

Foreword Sr. M. Amata Neyer
Introduction to this Edition Fr. John Sullivan
Publication Sequence of Sr. Renata Posselts Biography
Edith Stein Chronology Susanne Batzdorff
Abbreviations

Part 1

3. The Student: Breslau and Gttingen
4. My First Semester in Gttingen
6. The Good Aunt
9. Beuron
10. In the Service of Scholarship
11. In the Service of Love
13. The Road to Carmel

14. The School of Humility
15. The Novitiate
16. Joys and Sorrows of the Bride of Christ
17. Learning and Service of Love
18. In the Black Veil
19. In Echt
20. Plans of Escape
22. The Last News
23. Postscript

Notes
Gleanings
Take-Outs
Frequently Consulted Works
Indexes .
MapEdith Steins World and Frontispiece of Original Edition.

News of a fresh English translation of the first biography of Edith Stein was very welcome to me. The translators, Susanne M. Batzdorff, a niece of Edith Stein, and my Sister and Brother in Carmel, Sr. Josephine Koeppel of the Carmel of Elysburg, PA, and Rev. Dr. John Sullivan Chairman of the Institute of Carmelite Studies, ought to assure excellent results. In Germany, and in many other countries too, this long-out-of-print book is sought after again and again. It was written in 1947 by Teresia Renata of the Holy Spirit (Posselt), once novice mistress of Edith Stein, who then became prioress in 1936 and died in 1961. At first it was not at all easy to find a publisher for this slight volume, but finally Glock and Lutz of Nuremberg published it at Christmas 1948. The author is the only one of several biographers who have since written other fine biographies, who personally knew Edith Stein, Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce, and knew her as a Carmelite.

This personal connection is evident in this little book. It is written very warmly and allows you to experience the loving relationship between the writer and our sainted Sister. At the time, however, the author had no reliable sources to help her. Edith Steins belongings, including all her writings, were in the Netherlands and not accessible to Sr. Teresia Renata. She was exclusively dependent on the recollections of the Sisters in Cologne and Echt and on her own memory. Besides, one cannot ignore the fact that her memory played her many a trick and sometimes totally abandoned her. True, the uninformed reader did not notice this in the early editions of the biography: by nature the author did not allow those mistakes to bother her at all, even when they were gross errors, as when she ascribes to Edith Stein a book that in reality Hedwig Conrad-Martius had written. This did not diminish her enthusiasm. Other errors that pertained to the Stein family had already been noted early on by Dr. Erna Biberstein, ne Stein, Ediths slightly older sister, but unfortunately in vain. We dont know whether the publisher had difficulty with altering several pages or whether Teresia Renata was not interested in making the changes at any rate, from then on several bits of misinformation began to circulate around the world.

The books first edition had the simple title Edith Stein; its subtitle was The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite. Within just a few years the book reached seven editions. Its contents expanded considerably. Again and again relatives, friends and acquaintances came forward, former students and colleagues of Edith Stein, who were able to contribute reminiscences, letters, and photos. The translators have decided to use the fifth edition, that is considerably enlarged compared to the earlier ones. It also includes a final chapter entitled Postscript.

I would underscore two particulars about the book by Teresia Renata Posselt, newly translated into English. Beginning with the fifth edition, the motto of this work was changed. Originally it said, To be an image of the eternal, the spirit must be directed toward the eternal. It must embrace the eternal in faith, retain it in memory, and lovingly seize it with the will. (See Edith Stein, Collected Works 9, Finite and Eternal Being, 456). It now reads:

In other words, what did not lie in my plan lay in Gods plan. And the more often such things happen to me the more lively becomes in me the conviction of my faith that from Gods point of view nothing is accidental, that my entire life, even in the most minute details, was pre-designed in the plans of divine providence and is thus for the all-seeing eye of God a perfect coherence of meaning. Once I begin to realize this, my heart rejoices in anticipation of the light of glory in whose sheen this coherence of meaning will be fully unveiled to me. (See Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being, 113)

The book, published by Glock und Lutz, was preceded by an introduction that includes the following quotation from a letter by Prof. Martin Grabmann, then at Munich: The desire arises spontaneously that she [Edith Stein] may radiate through beatification and canonization as a shining example of knowledge and love of God, and one may ask for her intercession. The Cologne Carmel considered this purely as a private statement. We had lost our monastery in the war, we lived in rented quarters, and we could not even dream of tackling the extra work that such a process would involve. Only in 1962 did Cardinal Frings, responding to the requests of many Catholics and especially of the Association of Catholic German Women Teachers, open the first part of this process with interviews of witnesses.

Only after the end of the war, reliable inquiries, even through official search organizations, had become possible. In March 1948 we received information from Echt about a report from the Joodsen Raad in Amsterdam, that the group including Edith Stein had, with certainty, been killed in a camp in Poland soon after their deportation. When the Red Cross of the Netherlands confirmed the murder of the missing on 9 or 10 August (today the 9th is accepted as the most reliable date) we arranged for a solemn requiem to be sung and the Office for the Dead to be recited in the temporary chapel of our interim Carmel in KlnJunkersdorf.