A Reconstructed Portrait Of Juan Dela Cruz Essay
Hedy Madrid
I am very grateful and honored that Father JeanSleiman, OCD, and the other organizers have invited me to be a part of this symposium,among so many distinguished speakers. As some of you know, I am here by accident andbecause of a great tragedy. I am a late replacement for another Discalced Carmelite friar,Father Ross Collings, OCD, who died tragically in a car accident this past summer, on June30, 1998. He was vicar provincial of Australia, a distinguished teacher and scholar, aformer member of our International Carmelite Theological Commission, and a personalfriend. I had originally hoped to attend this symposium to hear his talk. Just as the twolenses of a refracting telescope enable us to see lights invisible to the unaided eye, soI expected valuable new insights observing our Oxford-trained Australian doctor as heobserved "Fralein Doctor Stein" observing the Mystical Doctor, St. John of theCross. In late July I even asked the Australian friars if Father Ross might have leftbehind any preliminary notes from which his contribution could have been reconstructed.Nothing has yet turned up. But I would like to dedicate my own modest efforts here to hismemory.
My assigned topic, "Edith Stein and John ofthe Cross," is certainly an important one for Stein studies. John of the Crossappears frequently in her later writings; she turned to him for reliable spiritualguidance during her years in Carmel. As everyone knows, Edith Steins last and mostfamous work, Kreuzeswissenschaft, is itself a detailed overview of Johns life anddoctrine. I must confess that, with only a few weeks to prepare this talk, I was not ableto explore the connection between these two great Carmelite figures as thoroughly anddeeply as the subject deserves. Fortunately, other scholars (including some of thespeakers at this symposium) have already done significant research in this area.Especially helpful are Francisco Javier Sancho Fermns recent book, Edith Stein:Modelo y Maestra de Espiritualidad (Burgos: Monte Carmelo, 1998) and several earlierarticles he published in the journal Teresianum. I have listed these and other studies atthe end of this essay in a select bibliography of previous research.
Yet we do not know for certain when Edith Steinfirst came into contact with the Mystical Doctor. Given her linguistic skills and thebreadth of her reading, perhaps she had already encountered his name before herconversion. During her university studies, did she perhaps glance through HenriDelacroixs Etudes dHistoire et de Psychologie du mysticism (Paris, 1908), forexample, which circulated widely and had a few pages on John of the Cross? Did she peruseWilliam Jamess Varieties of Religious Experience (New York, 1902) or RudolfOttos Idea of the Holy (Breslau, 1917), both of which mention John of the Cross? Atthis point we can only speculate. In any case, we know that her interest in religiousmatters evolved only gradually, nor does she ever mention any prior acquaintance with theMystical Doctor before her conversion. We can safely assume, therefore, that if she hadseen references to John of the the Cross in her earlier reading and research, they had notmade a significant impression upon her.
Her interest in John of the Cross would havequickened, however, at the time of her conversion in 1922, after reading Teresa ofAvilas Life. Since she later dates her desire to enter Carmel from this moment, shesurely would have wanted to know more about John, who was such an important foundingfigure and guiding spirit of the community she hoped to join.
Thus Edith Steins post-conversion yearscoincided, in the German-speaking world, with a period of renewed scholarly and popularinterest in mysticism in general, and in John of the Cross in particular. Edith Stein wasa part of this milieu. Already in a letter of November 20, 1927, written from St.Magdalenas College in Speyer, she encourages Roman Ingarden to consult the"witness of homines religiosi," among whom she counts "the Spanish mysticsTeresa and John of the Cross" as "the most impressive." Sancho Fermnoffers an exhaustive list of all the German-language articles and books published on theMystical Doctor during these decades, and suggests that Stein was very familiar with thestate of Sanjuanist studies in Germany at that time. We can add that, given her facilitywith other languages, she was by no means restricted to works written in German. The onlyrestriction would have been the availability of Sanjuanist materials to her, especiallyafter entering Carmel and during the later years of the Second World War. We know from herletters of that period that she often had difficulty obtaining the research materials sheneeded.
But it was in Carmel that Edith Stein came to knowJohn of the Cross most deeply. After all, they shared the same religious subtitle. For herthis was no mere coincidence but sign of her destiny, since the "deepestmeaning" of ones subtitle in religion, she wrote, "is still that we have apersonal vocation to live a particular mystery of the faith." We are all familiarwith her famous remark in a 1938 letter to Mother Petra Brning, OSU:
I must tell you that I already brought my religiousname with me into the house as a postulant. I received it exactly as I requested it. Bythe cross I understood the destiny of Gods people which, even at that time, began toannounce itself. I thought that those who recognized it as the cross of Christ had to takeit upon themselves in the name of all. Certainly, today I know more of what it means to bewedded to the Lord in the sign of the Cross. Of course, one can never comprehend it, forit is a mystery.
Thus even from the outset of her religious life,Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce believed she shared a special calling with Juan de la Cruzto live out the mystery of the Cross he amidst the birth pangs of the TeresianReform, she in solidarity with all those suffering the horrors of Nazi persecution. Whatit means to live "wedded to the Lord in the sign of the Cross" is a theme shewould explore at length in her final months as she composed her study of the MysticalDoctor.
To appreciate the extent of her acquaintance withJohn, it is interesting to compare her with two famous "elder sisters" in theCarmels of France, St. Thrse of Lisieux and Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity. All threewere faithful disciples of John of the Cross. Recall Thrses exclamation in Storyof a Soul, "Ah, how many lights have I not drawn from the works of our holy Father,St. John of the Cross! At the age of seventeen and eighteen I had no other spiritualnourishment" (A 83r). Yet Thrse and Elizabeth seem to have read little ifanything from Johns Subida and Noche Oscura commentaries. They quote almostexclusively from the Canticle and the Living Flame, both contained in the final volume ofthe four-volume French edition of that time. (Interestingly, this is the book Elizabeth isholding in her lap in her last photo, taken on the terrace outside her infirmary a monthbefore her death in 1906.)
By contrast, and as one might expect from someoneof her background, Edith approached her father in Carmel more systematically. As sheprepares for her clothing retreat in 1934, she writes to Mother Petra: "Our holyFather John of the Cross will be my guide: The Ascent of Mount Carmel." Her memorialcard for her clothing ceremony carries the words from the Ascent of Mount Carmel (and theSketch of the Mount), "To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing." Thefollowing year, mentioning her upcoming retreat before profession of vows, she writes,"For the immediate preparation I will ask again, as I did for my Clothing, to haveour holy Father John [of the Cross] as retreat master." This time, she notesafterward, "for my meditation I had our holy Father John [of the Cross]s DarkNight and the Gospel of John."
By the time of her final profession of vows threeyears later, Edith Stein had familiarized herself with the Cantico espiritual and itscommentary, for her solemn profession card carries a quotation from stanza 28, "Meineinziger Beruf is fortan nur mehr lieben" [my sole vocation is henceforth only tolove more], a fitting line for a woman who had sacrificed everything for her new life inCarmel.
In short, the many references to John in herletters and informal writings after entering Carmel reveal an intense interest in theMystical Doctor that is not merely intellectual nor merely a passing fancy. She recommendshis writings to scholarly friends both lay and religious, and explains to them importantpoints in his doctrine. But she also marks Johns feast days, writes spiritualreflections for these occasions, composes a "pious recreation" for the Echtcommunity featuring John of the Cross as one of the principle characters, and evenattempts "a copy of the sketch our Holy Father John made ... after the vision he hadof the Crucified.... The reproduction in P. Brunos book is not exactly sharp, and Iam anything but an artist. But I made it with great reverence and love...."
In short, within Carmel Edith Stein demonstrated anongoing commitment to immerse herself progressively in Johns writings and doctrine,but always coupled with a frank recognition that merely reading the Mystical Doctor was noguarantee that she had fully incorporated his message. In November 1940, she writes backfrom Echt to the Carmel of Cologne: "For several weeks I have also been responsiblefor the subject matter for meditation and, in preparation for the feast, am now takingshort excerpts from the Ascent of Mount Carmel. That was also my meditation material formy retreat before Clothing. Then each year I would go one step further in thevolumes of holy Father John [of the Cross], but that does not mean I kept up with it. I amstill way down at the foot of the mount."
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