Edith Stein
08.11.05 (5:57 am) [edit]Below is a talk given by a good friend of mine, Fr James Berhens. I really the subject matter.
Homily re Edith Stein – August 9, 2005
(Tuesday Morning)
We reach out for life in many ways, seeking the good, seeking some lasting sense of happiness. We look to others for that. The need for the comfort afforded by friendship is with us at a very early age. And it is hopefully with us our entire lives. To lose a desire for friendship is to close off something irreplaceable in human life. A lot of suffering is caused by turning to other places in the hope of assuaging loneliness. It is said that God seeks us in friendship. Today the church remembers Edith Stein. She was a Carmelite nun, a convert from Judaism, who lost her life in a concentration camp. She was a brilliant woman who longed for the presence of God. Her doctoral dissertation was on empathy – how to inhabit or understand as best as possible the inner life of another person. She would live and deepen her research through a life of prayer, scholarship, the fidelity of friendship. Those who knew her recalled her generosity in the ways of friendship. In the excerpt from her writing given us by Chaminade early this morning, she wrote of the importance of bringing to the events of every day the sight, the love, the ways of God. Christianity gave her the means to befriend all of life – in all its light and darkness. Each day brings with it many calls to a change of heart. I like to think that another way of saying this is that each day is an invitation to befriend God by befriending life. And that means that we are called, each day, to do what we must to best live as brothers and sisters. If there is a mind to God, and if it is possible to find an emphatic entrance to the person that is God, that entrance is through each other. We are not only an image of God. We are as well somehow the doorway. Jesus said that the way to life is narrow, and only a few find it. It is not easy to love each other as brothers and sisters. It is, as Edith Stein wrote, easier to spin in our own orbits. We know that terrible things happen when men and women no longer seek the narrow gate. When the friendship asked by God is denied others, there is bloodshed and loss of life on an unimaginable scale. Unless we live as sisters and brothers, we perish. The gospel is that clear and simple. And, horribly, so are the consequences of not taking it to heart. Something of Edith Stein lives in those who do what they can to befriend God by lowering the walls we erect between ourselves. She is a saint not only because she gave her life. She is as well a saint because she taught us what we can do with our lives, in and through the most ordinary of days. We may not be called to martyrdom, but we are called to laying down our lives for each other so that we might find each other. The gate to each other is empathy – a desire to see deeply into the life of another and to love what one finds. And how near that gate is, if we really want to find it.
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James Stephen Behrens, O.C.S.O.
Homily re Edith Stein – August 9, 2005
(Tuesday Morning)
We reach out for life in many ways, seeking the good, seeking some lasting sense of happiness. We look to others for that. The need for the comfort afforded by friendship is with us at a very early age. And it is hopefully with us our entire lives. To lose a desire for friendship is to close off something irreplaceable in human life. A lot of suffering is caused by turning to other places in the hope of assuaging loneliness. It is said that God seeks us in friendship. Today the church remembers Edith Stein. She was a Carmelite nun, a convert from Judaism, who lost her life in a concentration camp. She was a brilliant woman who longed for the presence of God. Her doctoral dissertation was on empathy – how to inhabit or understand as best as possible the inner life of another person. She would live and deepen her research through a life of prayer, scholarship, the fidelity of friendship. Those who knew her recalled her generosity in the ways of friendship. In the excerpt from her writing given us by Chaminade early this morning, she wrote of the importance of bringing to the events of every day the sight, the love, the ways of God. Christianity gave her the means to befriend all of life – in all its light and darkness. Each day brings with it many calls to a change of heart. I like to think that another way of saying this is that each day is an invitation to befriend God by befriending life. And that means that we are called, each day, to do what we must to best live as brothers and sisters. If there is a mind to God, and if it is possible to find an emphatic entrance to the person that is God, that entrance is through each other. We are not only an image of God. We are as well somehow the doorway. Jesus said that the way to life is narrow, and only a few find it. It is not easy to love each other as brothers and sisters. It is, as Edith Stein wrote, easier to spin in our own orbits. We know that terrible things happen when men and women no longer seek the narrow gate. When the friendship asked by God is denied others, there is bloodshed and loss of life on an unimaginable scale. Unless we live as sisters and brothers, we perish. The gospel is that clear and simple. And, horribly, so are the consequences of not taking it to heart. Something of Edith Stein lives in those who do what they can to befriend God by lowering the walls we erect between ourselves. She is a saint not only because she gave her life. She is as well a saint because she taught us what we can do with our lives, in and through the most ordinary of days. We may not be called to martyrdom, but we are called to laying down our lives for each other so that we might find each other. The gate to each other is empathy – a desire to see deeply into the life of another and to love what one finds. And how near that gate is, if we really want to find it.
--
James Stephen Behrens, O.C.S.O.