Walking with St Edith Stein into the Light of Easter
‘Death, where is thy sting; Grave, where is thy victory?’
The pilgrimage through the Sacred Triduum into the jubilant Easter Octave is not merely a reminiscence of Christ’s Passion and resurrection but an invitation to live it. A few Saints have victoriously embodied this mystery – including St Edith Stein – profoundly known as St Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Her short earthly life of 50 years was marked by intellectual brilliance (as a philosopher), deep faith (as a mystic) and a courageous martyrdom (by virtue of her Jewish heritage).
Photo: Easter Vigil at the London Oratory, 2015 (500th anniversary of the Birth of St Philip Neri).
She certainly had been a thought of God, as each and every one of us are! Born on the Jewish day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), struggling deep depression prior to her conversion due to her positionality as a Jewish woman where she was scorned and humiliated, then fearlessly advocating to set the stage for other women in academia as only the second women to earn a doctorate in philosophy from a German university.
Photo: Young Edith Stein
She experienced a profound conversion upon reading the autobiography of St Teresa of Avila (which she conceived as truth) that led to her Baptism in 1922; thereafter a lengthy 11 years of anticipation in obedience to her spiritual director before the doors of the Carmel in Cologne opened unto her. In Carmel, Edith adopted a life of prayer, obedience, sacrifice and silence – offering herself in union with Christ as His Bride – so completely that it led her, like Him in Golgotha, to a place of suffering and death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Her life offers a unique lens to contemplate the Paschal Mystery – the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus – as we process through Holy week into the Triduum and Octave of Easter that culminates in Divine Mercy Sunday.
Photo: St. Edith Stein in her religious habit, known by her religious name as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, (ca. 1938-1939)
In the reflections below, St Edith Stein would not want us to focus on her. Instead, she calls us to walk this path with Jesus – to stay in the Garden with Him, carry the Cross beside Him, fall with Him, enter the tomb with Him, rise in Him, and become instruments of mercy and hope in a world that deeply needs it.
Holy Thursday – The Gift of the Eucharist
Painting: Last Supper (h. 1562), The first Eucharist, depicted by Juan de Juanes, mid-late 16th century, Museo del Prado
Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper. Here, Christ humbled himself to wash the feet of His disciples, thereafter offers them His very Body and Blood in the Eucharist. In the writings of Edith Stein, these moments reveal the essence of Divine Love – a tangible gift of self to others and an invitation into communion.
In her Carmelite spirituality, Edith saw the Eucharist as the entry point into the interior life, where love needs to descend before it can rise –
“whoever receives the Lord in her soul’s innermost depth in Holy Communion cannot but be drawn ever more deeply and powerfully into the flow of divine life, incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, her heart converted to the likeness of the divine heart”
(Essays on Woman, 56).
Thus, to her, this was the ONLY gateway to transformation by the Love of Christ – where His humility at the Institution of the Eucharist becomes our daily spiritual nourishment.
Good Friday – The Science of the Cross
Photo: Pope Benedict XVI (Right) holds the cross during the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday on April 6, 2012 St Peter’s basilica at The Vatican. Christians mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Friday.
In the thought of Edith Stein, Good Friday is not a point of defeat but of philosophical and mystical truth. In her unfinished work The Science of the Cross, she described how suffering becomes transformative when united to Christ’s Passion. The Cross, to her, was key to human existence and cornerstone to redemption – where love meets suffering and redeems it.
One of Edith’s prominent quotes – “One cannot desire freedom from the Cross when one is especially Chosen for the Cross” – is not merely an abstract statement. Edith teaches us that to be chosen for the Cross is to be drawn into the deepest intimacy with Christ. She did not flee her path but followed Him to the end, trusting that authentic love is proven on the Cross, not abandoned. Hence, on Good Friday, we renew our conviction to not escape suffering but enter into a “relational” redemptive solidarity with the suffering Christ (redemptive suffering).
Holy Saturday – Waiting in Hiddenness and Silence
Photo: The Easter Vigil at St. Peter’s Basilica began in darkness with lit candles to signify the light of Christ coming to dispel the darkness, Vatican Media, 2023
Holy Saturday, a day often overlooked, carries a rich meaning as a day of holy silence – a time when the world is suspended between life and death. Edith understood this divine silence intimately as her Carmelite life was marked by interior hiddenness, solitude and silence.
Photo: Exultet being chanted, Easter Vigil at the London Oratory, 2015 (500th anniversary of the Birth of St Philip Neri).
On Holy Saturday, the Church waits in vigil, prayer and meditation – focussing on the grave – but also in a sense of knowing and hope that Christ's tomb is not a place of corruption, decay or defeat but a soon source of power and victory when the stone rolls away. This silence is priceless in the story of salvation that is to unfold at the Easter Vigil – God is still at work.
Easter Sunday – Resurrection and the New Creation
Painting: The Resurrection of Christ, Maerten de Vos (1532–1603)
Easter Sunday celebrates Christ’s triumph over death. Edith understood that His Resurrection is not merely the reversal of death; it is the inauguration of a new life—a divinized humanity, restored and transfigured.
As Easter Sunday unveils the transformation of suffering into glory, darkness into Divine light, woundedness into healing, mortality into radiance – we contemplate Edith’s words: “The world is in flames. The conflagration can also reach our house. But high above all the flames towers the Cross. They cannot consume it. It is the path from Earth to Heaven. It will lift one who embraces it in faith, love, and hope into the Bosom of the Trinity.” A kind of flame that does not consume – but refines.
Divine Mercy – The Great Calm where Love Triumphs All
St. Faustina's Original Divine Mercy Image
As the Easter Octave ends with Divine Mercy Sunday, the Church reflects on Christ’s infinite Compassion – embodying His wounds not as reminders of pain, but as fountains of unfathomable mercy.
Here, I recall and contemplate Edith Stein, who so deeply entered into the ‘Science of the Cross’ as a witness to mercy lived through sacrifice, and mirroring suffering as the place where mercy meets the human condition. Witnesses at the transit camp at Auschwitz described her composure and strength that reflects Christ's very own. Here, Fr Markan’s account of Edith is most significant on her nurturing soul even in tribulation:
“The distress in the barracks and the stir caused by the new arrivals was indescribable. Sr. Benedicta was just like an angel, going around among the women, comforting them, helping them, and calming them. Many of the mothers were near to distraction; they had not bothered about their children the whole day long, but just sat brooding in dumb despair. Sr. Benedicta took care of the little children, washed and combed them, looked after their feeding and their other needs. During the whole of her stay there, she was so busy washing and cleaning as acts of loving kindness that everyone was astonished”.
One would not have arrived at this height of grace without forgiveness, mercy, sacrifice and self-offering.
Similarly on Divine Mercy Sunday, Christ appeared to the disciples and said: “Peace be with you” – where suddenly here is a completely new reality, a new hope, a new peace. As He saw His disciples gathered in fear, “He showed them His hands and side” (John 20:20) – not to accuse, but to radiate His healing mercy. He breathes the Holy Spirit and entrusts them with the forgiveness of sins, as He too does unto us. Isabella Moyer beautifully describes:
“Divine Mercy is hope wrapped up in a loving God, ever ready to embrace us and forgive even our gravest sins. Believing in God, but not in Divine Mercy, would be a depressing and burdensome faith to bear”.
The Call to be Pilgrims of Hope
As I contemplate the life of Edith Stein and those of Christ, I am drawn to the synchrony of their spiritual walks – which we too are invited to enter into, both interiorly and outwardly. My reflection of her philosophy of the Triduum stands out as a procession from Communion to suffering, silence, glory and finally into the Merciful Heart of Jesus.
On Easter of this Jubilee Year of Hope, may we walk just as St Edith Stein did – through the Tridium with eyes fixed on Christ – embracing love that serves; suffering that redeems; silence that is patient and a joy that ascends – holding sorrow and joy simultaneously – Ave Crux Spes Unica (Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope)!
