P. Gorazd Cetkovský, O.Carm.
In this article, I would like to give us the opportunity to look into how Edith Stein, later the Barefoot Carmelite Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, experienced the Easter holidays. Numerous testimonies about her life have been preserved, which allows our perspective to be this detailed.
I will focus only on a hexad of consecutive Easters (from 1928 to 1933), which have a special significance and form in Edith Stein's life. At that time, Edith was already a Christian but not yet a Carmelite in a monastery. These six Easter celebrations share the fact that Edith Stein experienced them in Beuron. The local Benedictine monastery was, among other things, also a well-known center of spiritual visual arts and liturgical renewal.
What life situation was Edith in at that time? To provide context, I will briefly mention key dates from her life. She was born in 1891 to a Jewish family in Wrocław, which was then in Germany. She studied philosophy and converted to the Catholic faith at the age of thirty. She was baptized on New Year's Day 1922. An old, experienced priest, who prepared her for baptism, tried to find a suitable background for her after her baptism. He turned to his friend, the educated prelate Josef Schwind, the general vicar of the Speyer diocese. He became a great support for Edith, not only as a spiritual advisor. He understood her, dedicated his time to her, and helped her find her place in practical life: a teaching position at a school run by Dominican sisters directly in Speyer. There Edith began teaching in 1923. The school run by the religious sisters served not only as a source of income but also as a suitable environment for her own spiritual life. Living near the monastery, having the opportunity to pray in the church whenever she wanted, visiting Prelate Schwind on Sundays—all of this was very important to her. After several years, when she left Speyer and spent some time at home in Wrocław, she mentioned that getting used to another environment was not easy for her at all.
While spending summer holidays at home in Wrocław with her mother and family, she spent Christmas and Easter elsewhere. “During the holidays, it's especially difficult for me at home (you surely know that my relatives are not of our faith),” she once mentioned in a letter to one of her students (153).1 Therefore, she did not return to her family for the holidays. We know that she spent Easter in 1925 and 1927 at a place called Liebfrauenberg, which belongs to the parish of Bergzabern, where she was baptized. There was a rest home run by religious sisters, whose spiritual advisor was Prelate Schwind.
In 1927, however, Josef Schwind passed away. It was a great loss for Edith. At that time—during Easter in 1928—on the recommendation of her friend, Jesuit Erich Przywara, she traveled for the first time to Beuron. Besides the pious experience of the holidays, her goal was to meet with the abbot of the local monastery, Raphael Walzer. This very capable man then became her spiritual guide for the subsequent years of her life. Although he was only three years older than her, Edith had great respect for him.
She experienced her second Easter in Beuron the following year in 1929, and we are informed about it in more detail because this time she did not come alone. Among the students and religious sisters of the Speyer school, where she lived and taught, Edith privately dedicated time to several of them. One of them was the young Dominican sister Agnella Stadtmüller. Edith first prepared her for her supplementary graduation and for university studies. Then several years passed during which they remained in close contact. In the spring of 1929, Edith prepared a special gift for her: she arranged with the superior for Sister Agnella to spend Easter with her in Beuron. When Sister Agnella later summarized all her memories of Edith Stein, she identified those shared days in Beuron as the pinnacle of everything she could ever experience with Edith.
Edith understood her Easter stay in Beuron, especially Holy Week, as an exercise. She immersed herself in silence. From her preserved correspondence, it is evident that she tried to handle her letters beforehand or postpone them for later days. However, she was also very tactful. In one letter, she writes: “I am writing in advance because tomorrow, on Palm Sunday, I would like to start my silence. However, I am already including from both of the first days—I have been here since Thursday evening—fullness of peace, tranquility, and love…” (143) And she believes so much in this “package” of peace and love that she adds information to the already quoted sentences, which she assumes will sadden the letter's recipient. Edith, however, could also break her silence for serious reasons, for instance, when she had to express her opinion to a student who was deciding whether to enter the monastery. She wrote her the essentials and added: “I will not write further about myself this time since I actually have silence today.” (188)
Sister Agnella recalls that Edith woke up very early during those days to participate in the first monastic prayers, which took place in the church around four in the morning. However, Edith urged her to rest after school exertions and come to the church only for the morning Mass. After dinner, she also allowed her a break—a kind of pause in the exercise's silence: they would go for a walk to a quiet place and give themselves a moment of conversation. “With a light conversational tone, she usually spoke with me about the liturgical events we had just experienced or those that lay ahead. (...) Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday were days of profound silence and serious concentration for her until the Easter Alleluia rang out.”
The center of Easter truly lay for Edith in liturgical prayer, as also evidenced by her entries in the guestbook of the Mayer guesthouse, where she usually stayed in Beuron. At the end of her first stay there during Easter in 1928, she noted in the book (60):
Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus.
I rejoiced when they said to me: We will go to the house of the Lord. In hope that soon I may again go from the hospitable house by the wooden bridge into the “house of the Lord” and in heartfelt gratitude
Dr. Edith Stein, Speyer, St. Magdalene Monastery
(When Edith intended to go to Beuron for the first time during Easter in 1928, she wanted to stay at the retreat house “Maria Trost,” which was run by the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent de Paul in the town (it had been consecrated three years earlier). However, because retreats for teachers were taking place there at that time, the superior had to refuse her and recommended (59) advantageous accommodation in private “very close by.” This was probably the guesthouse where she then stayed during Easter.)
It is interesting how Sister Agnella's memories coincide with what Edith herself expresses in her letters to other friends. They share the conviction that the Easters in Beuron brought them lasting fruit. Sister Agnella wrote: “What the holy liturgy of Easter gave us is lasting and cannot fade away.” And a week after Easter, Edith wrote in a letter to her known religious sister in Munich, where Sister Agnella then went: “You will certainly still see a reflection of Beuron in Sister Agnella. What one carries away from there is lasting. And within twelve days one can gather a treasure that nourishes for a long time and helps digest everything that comes from outside. That is the answer to the question of how I am doing.” (68)
Another memory, which Sister Agnella says she will never forget, relates to their meeting with Father Abbot Raphael when they went together to thank him at the end of their stay. However, for Edith, he was more than just a host. She confided her spiritual life to him, and she really followed his advice. He also kept her from entering the monastery, arguing that she should use her talents (in terms of external activity) and also spare her mother from the great blow she would deal her. Edith once affectionately called him—certainly not without humorous exaggeration, but also not without reason—“my abbot.” In her memories titled “How I Came to the Cologne Carmel,” she wrote: “Years ago, I privately made my holy vows. Since the time I gained a certain kind of monastic home in Beuron, I have been able to see Arch-Abbot Raphael as ‘my abbot’ and present to him for decision all the important questions of my life.”2 In one letter, she mentioned her conversation with him: “I could also present everything quite unforced, and everything was accepted with kindness. As you know, there is no ‘diplomacy’ here and no ulterior motives.” (88)
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| Rafael Walzer (1888–1966) was elected abbot of the Beuron monastery at the age of thirty. He established a theological institute and a large library in Beuron, began to publish Benedictine magazines, and participated in the establishment of several other monasteries. In 1935, due to difficulties with the Nazi regime, he fled to Switzerland, then to France and Algeria. He returned to Germany only in 1964. He is buried in Beuron. |
She advised a similar approach to others. To her former student, who was now deciding to enter a monastery and later indeed became a Carmelite, Edith wrote: “I would very much like you to speak thoroughly with Father Abbot before you apply somewhere for admission.” (239)
And these were not trivial matters that she brought up with her spiritual guide. During Easter in 1930, she discussed the situation of one of her former students, who had just entered a monastery two weeks before. There must have been some difficulties associated with it, as Edith used the words: “problematic future.” (88) Father Abbot probably knew the girl and was personally interested in her receiving the necessary help. Later in the same year, when Edith contemplated leaving Speyer to focus more on her scholarly work and lectures, she mentioned in one letter that she did not want to waste time thinking about it yet but would deal with it during the Christmas holidays. “It is necessary to consider it thoroughly in Beuron.” (118)
One passage from her correspondence reveals that Edith must have also justified her relationship with the Beuron environment to herself. On Palm Sunday in 1932, she wrote to her student, who later became a Carmelite:
Of course, I too have already considered how I will justify to myself that I come here so often. However, in the end, one must also grant the inner life the nourishment it needs, especially when one must otherwise expend so much outwardly. Naturally, one cannot discuss that with people who are purely materialistic and have no sense for spiritual and psychic values. (188)
Her stay in Beuron during Easter in 1933 was very significant, shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. She wrote about it:
“This time, I was led there by another special matter. I have been contemplating in recent weeks whether I could do something regarding the Jewish question. In the end, I conceived the plan to go to Rome and ask the Holy Father for an encyclical in a private audience. However, I did not want to undertake such a step on my own.”3
Although it was a bit tense because Father Abbot was just about to return from Japan at that time, she was confident that he would want to be at the monastery for the holidays. And they did meet. Edith abandoned the idea of a trip to Rome, but through Father Abbot, she sent a letter to the Holy Father in which she presented her request. (For seventy years, this letter remained in the secret Vatican archives, and it was uncertain whether it actually existed or its exact wording. It was only in 2003 that these materials were declassified. The cover letter from Father Abbot to Edith's letter is dated April 12, 1933, which was Holy Week Wednesday in 1933.) Therefore, Edith wrote her letter to the Pope in Beuron during Easter in 1933.
She also calculated the time of her final decision to leave for the monastery from her stay in Beuron. “About ten days after my return from Beuron (after Easter 1933), the thought arose in me: Isn't it finally time to go to Carmel?” Therefore, Easter in 1933 was her last in Beuron. Still that year, she entered the monastery and experienced the remaining nine Easters of her life as a Carmelite.
Easter was therefore not a time for Edith to escape from people and withdraw into the world of liturgy. As is characteristic of her entire life, she remained open to others, to deep human relationships and values in her experience of Easter. This is evident from the facts we have already recalled. She was able to share the beauty of her Beuron Easters with her student, “her great child,” as she once called her. In Father Abbot, she sought not only an “institution”—spiritual guidance but also a person; their relationship was deeply friendly.
This dimension of her Easter is clearly evident from later circumstances. When she did not want to spend Christmas in Münster, where she was then working, and because she did not want to travel far due to a workload (225), she looked for a suitable refuge somewhere nearby. At that time, she chose the convent of the Ursulines in Dorsten. The local sisters were studying at the institute where Edith worked and lived, so they knew each other well. Two weeks after her departure from them, she wrote to their superior: “I would like to thank you once again for the beneficial quiet days of Christmas and for the hours you devoted to me. I must confess to you that my decision to go to Dorsten was guided not only by a desire for monastic solitude during the holidays but also by my intuition that something internally binds you to me and that a personal meeting would be meaningful. Perhaps you know even more about it than I do.” (231)
Moreover, her way of experiencing the holidays provided her with the opportunity to pray for others. After all, she relied on the prayers of others and gladly asked them for prayer. To one of her students, who was dealing with her difficulties in learning, Edith wrote after Christmas: “In Beuron, I thought a lot about you and your great request.” (128)
Let us now try to focus on the essence of what was most beautiful for Edith during her Beuron Easters. In one letter in the spring of 1930, she speaks of her busyness and her anticipation of Easter: “Amidst all the hustle (of work), my desire for calm in the liturgy naturally grows, and therefore I am thinking (of it), to travel to Beuron as soon as possible and in the most direct way.” (84) Thus, she seeks the calm that encompasses liturgy.
Even more eloquent seems to be her letter, in which she explains why she went to the Ursulines in Dorsten for Christmas in 1932. “For the days of the holidays, I want to escape to monastic seclusion with the beautiful liturgy: not to Gerleve (which was a nearby Benedictine monastery she knew well) because I fear the crowds in the church and even more in the monastery; but here, very close to the Ursulines in Dorsten, who have long invited me.” (225) Here, three determining motivations resonate:
- monastic solitude,
- beautiful liturgy,
- friendly support.
Perhaps the most detailed account of her Easters in Beuron can be found in a letter addressed to Sister Adelgundis Jägerschmidt, her former student (only four years younger than Edith) from Freiburg, where Edith once led a philosophical seminar as an assistant to Professor Husserl. On Easter Sunday, she wrote to this sister:
“Dear Sister Adelgundis,
Holy Saturday passed too quickly for me to send you an Easter greeting. And now I can say a bit more. Of course, I don't know where to begin and where to end. And the best of these abundantly blessed days cannot be said, let alone written down. “Praestolari in silentio salutare Dei” (In silence awaiting the salvation of God) was the text of the Good Friday sermon, which was given again by Father Abbot: the silence of Maundy Thursday as equipment, the silence of Good Friday as struggle, silence as victory—a mute rejoicing in Easter joy. We want to remain with that.” (88)
These lines provide just a small “window” into Edith's Beuron Easters. Just as she loved silence, she actually remained silent about her inner experience of the holidays. Yet, from her mentions, it is evident that this silence did not signify emptiness. To Sister Agnella, known to us, she wrote at the end of her last Easter in Beuron on Easter Monday in 1933:
“Dear Sister Agnella,
You know how filled the days are here. Therefore, please accept a heartfelt Easter greeting even if it is late...” (244)
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| A significant work of the Beuron Artistic School is the very first convent of the Benedictine women of the Beuron Congregation. It was built in Prague-Smíchov between 1888 and 1891 along with the church of St. Gabriel. In 1904, 14 sisters left this place to establish the newly built convent of St. Hildegard near Eibingen. In 1919, the Smíchov sisters, who feared for their community’s future in the new republic due to their German nationality, sold the entire convent and left for Germany. In Smíchov, Štěpán Macháček took photographs |
Even though I became acquainted with this hexad of Edith Stein's Easters (or rather Edith herself) with great interest, I still experienced a slight disappointment in conclusion. I hoped that the insights we would gain from this meeting with her would be useful to as broad an audience as possible. However, it turned out that although Edith was not yet a nun at that time, she was already very much bound to the monastic environment, and her piety bore a very monastic character. To Sister Adelgundis, she concluded one of her letters in 1930 (78) with the words: “in desiderio vitae monasticae s Vámi spojená...”—which can be translated as: “in the desire for monastic life” (even though it would theoretically also be possible to translate it: “in the desire characterized by monastic life”). There has already been mention of her private vows. And we could also observe that after her conversion, she lived almost always near some monastery or in a school where religious sisters taught and studied. Indeed—in her notes “How I Came to the Cologne Carmel,” Edith states that she had desired Carmel since her baptism; however, for a long time, it was not possible to fulfill that desire. She writes literally: “The waiting became very hard for me. I became a stranger in the world.”
As Edith was then—one could say—a nun without a habit, she also deeply clung to Beuron as a monastery. As we heard, she referred to it as her “monastic home.” Sister Agnella wrote in her memories of their Easter together in Beuron about their departure: “Then we left Beuron—with our hearts left behind.” Similarly, Edith expresses herself. Three weeks after Christmas (in January 1931), she wrote in one letter: “I received your dear letter while still in beloved Beuron. My heart is still there and only comes here when I urgently need it; otherwise, it waits until I come again there, which means looking forward to Holy Week...” (131) And yet, this was not some unhealthy attachment to the place or to the people she met there. After all, outside of Beuron, she managed to carry out a great deal of concentrated creative work, to live in depth her relationship with God as well as beautiful relationships with many people.
Thus, Edith Stein can be a model for us of a pious person living in a secular job. After her return from the Easter holidays (in 1932), she wrote from Münster to a friend:
“Your dear Easter letter found me in Beuron. (...) I could still be a happy monk for almost two weeks. I am, after all, here, just dividing my Ora et labora a bit differently...” (235) From this we can see that outside of Beuron, Edith was not an unhappy, uprooted person, but she carried with her the accumulated inner wealth and lived from it.
Lastly, I have reserved one event that did not take place directly in Beuron, but on the way there. When Edith went to this monastery for the last of her six Easter visits there, she also intended to consult the Pope about her plan to reach out to him. She later wrote about it:
“Although it suited my nature to undertake such an outward step, I felt that it was not yet ‘the right one.’ Yet, what the right one was to consist of, I did not know.
In Cologne, I interrupted my journey from Thursday evening until Friday morning. I had a catechumen there, to whom I had to devote a little time at every possible opportunity. I wrote to her to let me know where we could go to visit the ‘holy hour’ in the evening. It was the eve of the first Friday in April, and in this ‘holy year’ 1933, the memorial of the Passion of our Lord was celebrated particularly solemnly everywhere.
At eight o'clock in the evening, we attended the holy hour at the Carmel in Cologne-Lindenthal. The priest had a sermon (...) He spoke beautifully and movingly, but something else occupied me more deeply than his words. I conversed with the Savior and told him that I knew it was his cross that is now placed on the Jews. Most do not understand it; but those who do must willingly take it upon themselves in the name of all. And that I want to do, just let me show how. When the devotion ended, I had the inner certainty that I had been heard. But what this bearing of the cross was to consist of, I did not yet know...
The next morning, I continued my journey to Beuron.”
This important prayer in the Cologne church did not belong directly to Edith's Beuron Easters. However, I believe it was connected with them. I believe that from all of Edith’s Easters in the Beuron monastery, her deep attention to the Savior, his cross, and his redemptive price emerged.
May our Easter (however many it is in which place?) always be a spiritual renewal, may they be moments of firm attachment to the Lord Jesus and sometimes perhaps also a tangible preparation for great moments in our lives.
