Since the opportunities for professional work are very limited in the monasteries of the Discalced Carmelites, though one of the possible activities is that of a writer, Sister Benedicta, as Edith Stein was called after her clothing, was asked to compose hagiographic essays and religious reflections on a regular basis.
Along with this mostly exterior reason for the origin of her writings, there also crystallizes an inner, personal motivation: Edith Stein poses and answers questions which are of decisive importance to herself. In the persons and situations that she describes, she frequently recognizes a mirror image of herself, an evident similarity to her own characteristics and experiences. At such points she breaks her otherwise impenetrable silence about herself in an indirect way. For a moment she lifts the veil behind which her interior life is hidden and permits a glimpse of a vanished yesterday, vanishing today, and dark tomorrow.