"St Elizabeth of Thuringia" is portrayed enwrapped in fairytale magic, as a child of an Hungarian king who resided on the Wartburg, bathed in the light of the legendary fame and brilliance of the nobles of Thuringia. This short biography is simultaneously a verse out of the epic of the German middle ages.
In writing about the French Carmelite "Marie-Aimée de Jésus," Edith Stein paints the picture of a delicate child of angelic purity and spirituality. Born in the thatched hut of a little town in Normandy, she is called from the first day of her life to loving contemplation of the Almighty. This is an episode taken from nineteenth century French devotional life.
In both Elizabeth's and Marie-Aimée's manifest mental attitudes, Edith Stein finds a confirmation of her own knowledge in faith that all creation is directed by the power of grace. In the image of the character of Marie-Aimée she encounters her own self. She cites and comments on texts from their writings,@3 which could also justify her entrance into the Order of the Discalced Carmelites, could appropriately describe her own intuitive way of working, and present in a true-to-life way her frame of mind as a writer while in the Order.
In the "Sketch of St Teresa Margaret," Edith Stein talks of Margaret's spontaneous empathic ability, a gift which also lent Edith herself unusually strong influential powers, and harmoniously united intellect and feelings in her own person.
Two basic thoughts determine Edith Stein's religious form of life. They direct her thinking along religious lines, ground her turning to the contemplative life, and support her activities in the service of the church. One of these is the love of the cross, which gives our being, unstable because of change and transience, an ultimate security in the constant primal Ground of eternal Being. The other is atonement, which breaks through the disastrous and endless cycle of our own and others' debt of shame in the face of God's goodness and justice and so achieves reconciliation and peace.
Love of the cross and atonement are also expressed in the three vows, which regulate monastic life and which are [ceremonially] renewed annually, the vows of poverty, obedience, and celibate chastity.
In Carmel it is customary for the prioress to address her sisters on high feast days of the Order, often about the deepening of prayer life. In the years that Edith Stein spent in the Carmel in Echt, she composed a number of such occasional texts at the request of the superior.@4 In these meditations we hear the voice of a devout soul that in inner abandonment is ready to give up her earthly existence to atone for the outrages of the unchained beast of National Socialism. Above and beyond a violent death without a grave, in these reflections Edith Stein leaves us the moving invitation to live out the conviction of our faith. She breaks her silence to open our inner eye to the "epiphany" of her hidden life.
Finally, we want to mention the providential spiritual relationship of Holy Mother Teresa of Avila to her spiritual daughter Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a relationship that becomes evident in the hagiographic writing "Love for Love."
In moments of intuitive genius, the human spirit can be elevated beyond the limited possibilities of rational insight to poetic or prophetic vision. In celestial moments of its existence, it may be allotted the grace of temporary rapture into transcendent worlds. Silent meditation is the preparation and the way to comprehensible and incomprehensible elevations of the soul and so to entrance to the ultimate depths of one's own self.
The clear language of prose is suitable for expressing rational thought; meditative and prophetic ascension of the spirit requires the linguistic expression of the poetic form. Words fail in the vision of the transcendent; their place is taken by wordless contemplation in deepest silence.
Between the lines of the writings one can read that the lives of these two women, the saintly Mother Teresa of Avila and Blessed Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, have all along been parallel. Edith Stein went through a decisive upheaval upon reading the life of the Holy Mother. From then on she became profoundly familiar with the prayer life of Carmel, even to the heights of mystical experience before she ever donned a nun's habit. Stepping over the threshold of the monastery meant for her the confirmation and perfection of the lifestyle that suited her best.@5