Tag: Christ

“Christ-Haunted” and Flannery-Haunted

November 6, 2013

She would probably hate that title.

The only thing Flannery wanted us to be haunted by is Jesus, as she so disturbingly and movingly describes in Wise Blood:

Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he might be walking on the water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown. (O’Connor, Wise Blood, via goodreads.com)

Flannery O'Conner
source: ahsartgallery.blogspot.com

I need to go read her first novel, Wise Blood, again– but even as a Catholic I am afraid. That’s when you know you’ve confronted good literature, when it makes you afraid–not in the superficial sense, but the deep sense. Afraid because when you read it you have to face the truth whether you like it or not.

Anyway –

I just read another article about this new book that has been published, consisting of her personal prayers she wrote while she was in her 20’s — that is, my age.

The article I read is very good, and you should read it too: “7 Reasons to Read A Prayer Journal by Flannery O’Connor.”

The author Cybulski says, quite rightly: “The journal is a cry of the heart so deeply intimate I wondered at times whether I should be reading it at all.”

That’s why I haven’t read it yet. Having read her letters several times over in The Habit of Being, I am pretty confident that Flannery would really hate it if her private prayers were published. Hans Urs von Balthasar might describe it as a violation of the unveiling of being — a kind of violation whereby the truth is forced or snatched from someone without her consent. (The Greek word for Truth – aletheia – means “unveiling” or “disclosedness”).

Then again, however, Flannery in heaven may not care very much or may, indeed, be quite open to the idea if she knew it might help those of us bumbling along the road down here.

But I haven’t read the letters yet. It seems indecent. But if I am really honest with myself, I would have to say that I am afraid to read them.

Yes, afraid.

47027-ExcellentQuotations.com-Mother-TeresaI remember reading Mother Teresa’s Come Be My Light in the midst of a time (a very long time, mind you) in which I was really struggling to believe in God. This book was a very painful sort of comfort, and I highly recommend it–but I recommend it with fear and trembling, because if you really read it, that’s how it should affect you. Mother Teresa was one of the holiest women of the 20th century (and, perhaps, ever). Even most nonbelievers accept that (except silly people like Christopher Hitchens). Yet her belief in God, though the center of her life, was also most certainly the most painful part of her life. Joy and sorrow are not two separate things here.

And I suspect the same is true of Flannery O’Connor. You get hints of this struggle all over the place in The Habit of Being and in her fiction, which is populated by all sorts of nonbelievers–whether they be outright honest atheists, amiable agnostics, or Pharisaical Christians of the most disgusting type.

One of her characters, Hazel Motes, experiences a radical de-conversion in which he abandons his biblical faith. He is tired of the demands of Christ. He is tired of running from Christ. So he decides to begin his own Church Without Christ (a rather interesting version of the New Atheism a’la Dawkins et. al) and proceeds to preach his new disbelief with abandon. He says, “I don’t have to run from anything because I don’t believe in anything.”

As you read, however, you see he is still running.

See if you can hear the echo of O’Connor’s own possible struggle with faith in his tirade:

“Leave!’ Hazel Motes cried. ‘Go ahead and leave! The truth don’t matter to you. Listen,’ he said, pointing his finger at the rest of them, ‘the truth don’t matter to you. If Jesus had redeemed you, what difference would it make to you? You wouldn’t do nothing about it. Your faces wouldn’t move, neither this way nor that, and if it was three crosses there and Him hung on the middle one, that wouldn’t mean no more to you and me than the other two. Listen here. What you need is something to take the place of Jesus, something that would speak plain. The Church Without Christ don’t have a Jesus but it needs one! It needs a new jesus! It needs one that’s all man, without blood to waste, and it needs one that don’t look like any other man so you’ll look at him. Give me such a jesus, you people. Give me such a new jesus and you’ll see how far the Church Without Christ can go!” (O’Connor, Wise Blood via goodreads.com)

Notice, that what bothers Motes the most, (and, I suspect, Flannery), is that to some people, “the truth don’t matter to you.” They just don’t care about what’s true. God exists. Whatever. God doesn’t exist. Whatever. It simply just does not matter to them. And that’s what’s really horrifying. Because of course it matters. It’s really the only thing that matters–either side you choose.

But back to her published prayers.

From the article:

 It is the rare 22-year-old who describes God as “the slim crescent of a moon . . . [which] is very beautiful,” while viewing herself as “the earth’s shadow . . . [which threatens to] grow so large that it blocks the whole moon.” Flannery confesses to being “afraid of insidious hands . . . which grope into the darkness of my soul,” begging God to be her protector, shielding her against those things which would tear her away from Him. (Cybulski)

If that isn’t faith, I don’t know what is.

And I am afraid like Moses was afraid of the burning bush. You see it, you can barely believe it, you clumsily take off your sandals–aware that your filthy feet are still touching Sacred Ground–and you know that if you come any closer you will probably be burned by something or Someone more terrible than you had supposed.

I will read that book eventually. Perhaps soon.

 “I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic frippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftsmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually . . . I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God please help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You.” (O’Connor, from her prayer journal via goodreads.com)

Try inserting your vocation in place of “artist.”

I must write down that I am to be a teacher. Not in the sense of educational frippery but in the sense of academic scholarship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually… I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God please help me to be a teacher, please let it lead to You.

Amen.

Notes from my First Year of Teaching

April 1, 2013

Here are excerpts from notes I wrote during my first full year of teaching (last year).

1. circa September 2011

“Come see Ms. Shea! Come see!”

I remembered that the other ACE teachers at my high school in rural LA had mentioned this verbal phenomenon to me before my first day of school. Instead of saying “Could you come and look at this, Ms. Shea?” or “I need to show you something, Ms. Shea,” or even “I have a question, Ms. Shea,” my sophomores, juniors and seniors consistently say, “Come see!” –even if they don’t actually want to show me something.

As I remember, the theme of the opening April ACE retreat was the invitation of Christ – “Come and see” (John1:39).  Little did I know then how often I would hear that invitation in the classroom from my students! I am not sure if this phrase is particular to the local area or to all of Louisiana, but I think it is a daily gift that reminds me of my purpose as an ACE teacher.

carpetbaggerI came to Louisiana with a lot of ideas about what it would be like—small, rural Southern towns conjure up a lot of Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor-esque images for northern English majors like me. Seeing the ramshackle houses on cinder blocks alongside my school, the black and white neighborhoods distinctly separated by streets, the bizarre Daiquiris drive-through stations, the flat, steamy landscape rich with both sugarcane and humidity was enough to bewilder me the first few days and to make me feel further from my own cultural comfort zone than ever. But one of the most important things I am discovering, with the help of my students, is the simple necessity to come and see—to put aside whatever cultural preconceptions might hinder me from really appreciating this strange, beautiful place and my strange, beautiful students.

2. circa October 2011

“She had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade and he could do anything.” (Everything that Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor)

            This quote may seem rather discouraging to teachers but I think it describes with painful accuracy the challenge of getting students to take responsibility for their own learning. I have found myself falling into the trap of doing most of the talking, most of the working, most of the thinking in the classroom—and if I continue I will not only burn myself out, I will also have failed to engage my students.

Part of this failure of engaging and providing feedback for my students seems to be the direct results of my efforts find realistic and efficient ways to do both.  I have started to create guided notes for my students so that during direct instruction they don’t just sit and listen passively or (on the opposite end of the spectrum) try to copy down everything from a power point presentation or lecture. Giving them a concrete task to accomplish during direct instruction helps engage them and even encourages their participation since they know what information they need to discover. However, the drawback to these guided notes is that students tend to want to listen only for the right “answer” so that they can copy it down, rather than ask intelligent questions and engage the subject more for its own sake. I have found that students are so focused on getting the right answer that they are not concerned with learning how to think critically and independently—I want to find ways to push them toward that. This is very difficult, however, since many of my students resent the ways that I try to push and challenge them already.

[…] But honestly, I feel overwhelmed standing in front of so many students. Sometimes I feel teacherstresslike I can really see the ones who are struggling or who are disengaged, but I don’t feel as though I have the time or energy to find a way to bring them back in since I feel like I am barely making it through lesson plans. I feel frustrated because I know there are so many things I could be doing better, or so many other “methods” I could try to help my students, but at the same time I still feel like I am in survival mode and I am just trying to get through the day. Unfortunately, I am afraid that this sense of being totally overwhelmed is both caused by and starting to result in the students working less and me working more.

But as O’Connor says, “To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.” Somehow, I need to set high expectations for myself and for my students while at the same time realizing that teaching is much more about love and consistency than it is about visible success.

3. circa December 2011

Student A said to me a couple of weeks ago, “Ms. Shea, at first I thought you were really scary. You were so serious! But actually you’re very nice.”

I smiled and silently remembered that the reason I looked so serious all the time the first four or five weeks was because I felt sick every morning from being so nervous. Gradually, however, as I got to know the students I found myself smiling more and engaging in conversation with them—I found myself sharing, every once in a while, a little bit about my own past experiences. The fact that I have a second-degree black belt and used to teach marital arts received a particularly enthusiastic (albeit slightly apprehensive) response.

Sharing myself with my students at times (I am still rather shy and hesitant about this) I think has helped them feel more comfortable with me and more willing to take risks in the classroom—good risks, like volunteering when no other hands are raised, or arguing for an unpopular perspective. I think that knowing me better has even helped the students who I sometimes have to keep after class—a part of them sees that I am a real person with a real history; that I care about them, and that my “real” black-belt, Red Sox fan, Texan and twin-sister self is not separate from my identity as the teacher and authority figure.

The wonderful thing about this is that the sacramental view of reality—God communicating Himself to us through created things in tangible, sometimes even mundane ways—means that these simple acts of mutual trust are potentially vehicles of His grace. Occasionally I even see the fruit of this grace—like when Student B was leading prayer and suggested that all of us mention something that we would really like to improve in our lives. The honest and humble responses of each student created a special moment of shared trust and even vulnerability—the answers ranged from “patience” to “improving my attitude at school.” It was a little moment, but I think it really reflected the respect that the members of the class had developed for one another.

4. circa June 2012 (coming full circle)

“Come see, Ms. Shea! Come see!”

This is the second or third time I have written a reflection about this phrase in my spiritual life, but ever since I joined ACE it keeps coming up! As the 12 Steps of ACE mainslide-come-and-seespirituality indicate, this is the first invitation of Christ to his disciples in the Gospel of John—“Where are you staying?” “Come, and you will see!” It is also the first invitation of Christ to all of us ACE teachers on April retreat. There’s a beautiful Providence at work in the fact that “come see” is a daily phrase of my students in rural Louisiana. It can mean many things—but for my students, it usually is their way of saying “I need you!” So it has always been very moving and strange for me to hear similar words coming from the mouth of Christ: “Come and see, I need you.”

In the computer lab as I move across the room from student to student, trying to encourage them and push them along in revising their essays, or in my classrooms amidst the hum (sometimes the chaos) of group activities, or on my way to lunch in the cafeteria, I constantly hear that phrase. “Can you come see, Ms. Shea?” “Ms. Shea, please come see!” And no matter how exhausted or stressed I am, I love hearing those words. They always bring me back to April retreat and my first moments of hopeful enthusiasm in ACE. They have served as a reminder again and again this past year of Christ being somehow in my students. It feels like I keep being nudged or woken up, whenever I fall into the sleep of discouragement or exhaustion or frustration—I’m invited to open my eyes again. “Yes, I’ll come see.”

.

Good Friday

March 29, 2013

The Passion According to St. John

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Image

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

The “Dignity and Vocation of Women” in the Life of Saint Edith Stein, Part Three

March 28, 2013

This is the third and final post in a series on how John Paul II’s Mulieris Dignitatem illuminates Saint Edith Stein’s spirituality. Her devotion to the Cross and her unique perception of the privileged role of women in Christ’s passion is so beautiful.

You can read the earlier posts here:

Part One

Part Two

saint-teresa-benedicta-01Saint Edith Stein’s exploration of the feminine vocation in her writings is inseparable from her exploration of the human being as such, as both male and female. That is, she emphasizes the differences between the souls of men and women, as suggested above, and at the same time she offers an important insight into a common aspect of all human beings that is grounded in scripture. For her, the key to developing the human soul is to discover one’s unique gifts: “The parable of the talents refers to the unique gift given to each individual; the Apostle’s word describes the multiplicity of gifts afforded in the Mystical Body of Christ. The individual must discover his own unique gift.” She proposes that in men and women, “the same gifts occur in both, but in different proportions and relation.”[1]

This is a controversial statement to make by society’s standards today. We are searching for the true definition of equality, and many of us cannot reconcile our ideal with Stein’s “different proportions and relation.”  Personally I think this is very understandable: the notion that men and women are inherently different is not very popular because in the past (and even in the present) it has been used as an excuse to degrade and stereotype both sexes with destructive norms of “manliness” and “womanliness.” We cannot simply ignore this difficulty, and I do not think Edith Stein would want us to.

Nonetheless, John Paul II also emphasizes the important distinction between the gifts of men and women, but he insists that this distinction not only doesn’t take away the mutual dignity of the sexes, but rather constitutes it:

The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: they are merely different. Hence a woman, as well as a man, must understand her ‘fulfillment’ as a person, her dignity and vocation, on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the ‘image and likeness of God’ that is specifically hers. (emphasis added) [2]

A woman’s “expression of the ‘image and likeness of God,'” according to Pope John Paul, is jp2andmother“specifically hers”–it is a special gift for all women, a particular way of reflecting who God is to the world. It is not the same expression of God’s image and likeness that men have been given–it is unique and carries within itself a special dignity.

This is very beautiful to me, but somewhat hard to understand concretely. I think that it can also be hard for many women to believe and trust in as well–especially those who have experienced the hurt of a vapid, idealized femininity stylizing itself as appropriate “gender roles” that in the end degrades women and limits our freedom. Isn’t it easier, in some ways, to insist on equality as being “sameness”–and to have done with all of this talk of “distinction,” “complementarity,” and “different but equal” (it does sound a lot like “separate but equal”)?

However, I think what John Paul II is trying to describe is a mystery that can be better understood when lived by a real person. Saint Edith Stein exemplifies the discovery of the special “expression of ‘God’s image and likeness'” in her cultivation of her gifts and unique “resources.” I especially admire her quick intelligence and hunger for truth, which motivated her to pursue her education even at the highest levels in a time when philosophical discourse at the university level was usually reserved for men. (Societal expectations of gender roles are thus not the standard she was interested in.) Her enthusiastic engagement with her own gifts and talents helped lead her to faith; her desire for the truth allowed her to recognize it in the biography of Saint Teresa of Avila—a discovery which allowed her to make a profound and courageous gift of self by converting to Catholicism and subsequently joining the Carmelite order, despite the suffering it caused her as a Jewish woman. Moreover, as a Carmelite she used her gifts in service to her fellow sisters, often in her writings on the saints and spirituality. You can see this best by reading her in her own words. Her perceptiveness and keenness flourished in the service of God.

Here is a brief example. Although Stein, like Pope John Paul II, emphasizes the differences between men and women and their gifts, she also insists upon the unity of their destiny—that it is in Christ that humankind, both male and female, is brought to perfection:

To belong to and serve God in love’s free surrender is the vocation of every Christian, not only of a few elect. Whether consecrated or not, whether man or woman — each one is called to the imitation of Christ. The further one continues on this path, the more Christlike he will become. Christ embodies the ideal of human perfection: in him all bias and defects are removed, the masculine and feminine virtues are united and their weaknesses redeemed; therefore, his true followers will be progressively exalted over their natural limitations. That is why we see in holy men a womanly tenderness and goodness and a truly maternal solicitude for the souls entrusted to them, while in holy women there is manly boldness, proficiency, and determination.[3] (emphasis added)

For Stein, “holy men,” the more they become like Christ, will exhibit feminine gifts, and “holy women” will similarly exhibit “manly” gifts. This idea is really fascinating–and, if we reflect on it for a while, true to our experience of the holiest people we know. There are members of my own family and personal acquaintance that seem to embody this mystery. The distinction that Saint Edith Stein and John Paul II insist upon is somehow caught up in a deeper union–a union achieved in Christ that does not ignore but rather exalts differences between men and women.bodyofchrist

That is, it is only in the unity and complementarity of man and woman that the destiny of the human race can be achieved by God’s grace. Both man and woman, insofar as they are conformed to Jesus Christ, can embody “the ideal of human perfection”—since in Christ “all bias and defects are removed, the masculine and feminine virtues are united and their weaknesses redeemed.”

Her words do not necessarily eliminate all confusion, and they certainly do not make the mystery any easier to swallow. But getting to know her in her life and writing is the most convincing to me.

Just as Stein locates the perfection of men and women in Christ, Pope John Paul the II locates it in the very life of the Holy Trinity–in the mystery of God Himself:

The fact that man ‘created as man and woman’ is the image of God means not only that each of them individually is like God, as a rational and free being. It also means that man and woman, created as a ‘unity of the two’ in their common humanity, are called to live in a communion of love, and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is in God, through which the Three Persons love each other in the intimate mystery of the one divine life. … This ‘unity of the two’ which is a sign of interpersonal communion, shows that the creation of man is also marked by a certain likeness to the divine communion (‘communio’). This likeness is a quality of the personal being of both man and woman, and is also a call and a task.[4]

The communion of men and women is a reflection of the communion of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Go back and reread the above excerpt from Mulieris Dignitatem again, slowly. It is not only a beautiful image, but it is a challenge to all of us in our relationships with one another. I think John Paul is also referencing St. Paul here– he says something somewhere about God being the source from which all human families are named.

Some of my friends have asked me that if it is true that both men and women reflect the communion of the Holy Trinity, then where is “the feminine” element in God? Many people seem bothered by the fact that God is always referred to in the Church as a “He”–when of course he is beyond our sexual categories. Is it therefore appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as “feminine,” in order to include our masculine and feminine human communion in our concept of the Trinitarian life?

I do not think this is appropriate, since such a gesture reverses the actual anagogical (not analogical!) meaning of communion as proceeding from God and then to us human beings, not vice versa. We are but the reflection of the light, not the light itself. But that is probably a subject for another post.

Anyway.

This likeness to Christ and to the life of the Trinity was a “call and a task” that Saint Edith Stein answered with profound love. Her search for the truth lead her to the Cross, to the very giving over of her own life for the people of Israel—an act of love that conformed her intimately with the life and sacrifice of Christ. She completely embraced the call to conform herself to Christ and to the image of God in a way that united her with the women in the Gospels who followed Christ even to Calvary.

Of her vocation as a cloistered Carmelite she said simply, “I even believe that the deeper someone is drawn to God, the more he has to `get beyond himself’ in this sense, that is, go into the world and carry divine life into it.”[5] (See Pope Francis’ similar challenge to us today here.) I think that discovering the true meaning of masculinity and femininity will similarly involve a “getting beyond ourselves,” toward Christ.

Saint Edith Stein offers a beautiful example of a woman who discovered her gifts and talents and offered them to God, a true instance of what Pope John Pall II calls “the manifestation of the feminine ‘genius.’”  She is an answer to the prayer of the Church which he articulated years after her death: that the gifts of the Holy Spirit,

which with great generosity are poured forth upon the ‘daughters’ of the eternal Jerusalem, may be attentively recognized and appreciated so that they may return for the common good of the Church and of humanity, especially in our times. Meditating on the biblical mystery of the ‘woman’, the Church prays that in this mystery all women may discover themselves and their ‘supreme vocation.’ [6]

StEdith

[1] Ibid.

[2] Pope John Paul II. Mulieris Dignitatem.10

[3] As quoted by Kathleen Sweeny. “Is there a Specifically Feminine Spirituality?: An Exploration of Edith Stein’s Thesis.” Catholic Education Resource Center. http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/feminism/fe0056.htm

[4] Pope John Paul II. Mulieris Dignitatem. 7

[6] Pope John Paul II. Mulieris Dignitatem. 31

The “Dignity and Vocation of Women” in the Life of Saint Edith Stein, Part One

March 24, 2013

In this series of posts during Holy Week, I want to share how much I love St. Edith Stein– or St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. These posts are adopted from a paper I wrote my senior year at UD while taking an amazing class on the theology of spirituality with Father Roch Kereszty, O. Cist.

edithstein

The “Dignity and Vocation of Woman” in the Life of Saint Edith Stein

“A great responsibility is being laid upon us by both sides. We are being obliged to consider the significance of woman and her existence as a problem. We cannot evade the question as to what we are and what we should be… We are trying to attain insight into the innermost recesses of our being… Our being, our becoming does not remain enclosed within its own confines; but rather in extending itself, fulfills itself. However, all of our being and becoming and acting in time is ordered from eternity, has a meaning for eternity, and only becomes clear to us insofar as we put it in light of eternity.”[1] Saint Edith Stein, “Spirituality of the Christian Woman.”

            For Saint Edith Stein, the question of woman’s spirituality is inseparable from questions about her very being, from what makes her unique. Stein suggests that it is through an act of “extending” or giving oneself that woman finds “fulfill[ment],” but that special action can only properly be understood in the context of “eternity,” or ultimate ends—that is, Stein the existentialist philosopher and Carmelite nun looks at the question of woman from a philosophical perspective, but also under the light of faith. Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, also considers the question of woman’s dignity and vocation with a similar twofold view. In this essay, I would like to explore the particular dimensions of Saint Edith Stein’s spirituality in light of John Paul II’s document in order to elucidate the special calling of women in the life of the Church.

The life of Edith Stein is a beautiful example of a woman searching for the truth and finding it at last in the cross. Born in a Jewish family on the Day of Atonement in 1891, Stein spent much of her young years as an atheist, but her natural intelligence and desire for the truth lead her to pursue psychology and eventually a new branch of philosophy, called phenomenology, which she studied under the guidance of Edmund Husserl. He taught that the world does not merely exist in our subjective perception, but rather that it has an objectivity that can be engaged by the subject. Stein’s engagement with this new philosophical context opened up the intellectual possibility for her that truth was absolute—that it could be searched for and discovered. But even if her mind was opened to the possibility of truth, her heart remained closed to it until she experienced truth concretely lived out in the suffering of a Christian. Husserl’s assistant, Adolf Reinach, who had converted to Protestantism, was killed at Flanders in 1917; when Stein visited his wife Anne Reinach, she encountered a woman whose faith was lived out in union with the Cross. As Stein said later, “This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it … it was the moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me – Christ in the mystery of the Cross.”[2]

This encounter with the Cross of Christ profoundly shaped Saint Edith Stein’s spirituality and her view of the feminine vocation. In order to see this connection, we must emphasize two important points the concern her belief in the uniqueness of the female soul. (1) When discussing the differences between the souls of women and the souls of men, Stein emphasizes the special and intense unity between soul and body in woman:

With woman, the soul’s union with the body is naturally more intimately emphasized… Woman’s soul is present and lives more intensely in all parts of the body, and is inwardly affected by that which happens to the body; whereas, with men, the body as more pronouncedly the character of an instrument which serves them in their work and which is accompanied by a certain detachment.[1]

Stein identifies the strongest reason for this difference as originating in woman’s capacity for motherhood: “The task of assimilating in oneself a new creature in the maternal organism represents such an intimate unity of the physical and spiritual that one is well able to understand that this unity imposes itself on the entire nature of woman.”[2] For Stein, this unity between soul and body in woman is both a potential source of strength and weakness. She notes the danger that the soul will be controlled by the body instead of vice-versa. Nevertheless, “the strength of woman lies in the emotional life. This is in accord with her attitude toward personal being itself.”[3] This is because it is through emotions that a soul comes to understand itself and others, especially in the case of women. But just like in men, emotions “need the control of reason and the direction of the will.”[4]

(2) In addition to the unity between a woman’s body and soul, Stein also emphasizes the desire of woman to give herself in love. All women have

a longing to give love and to receive love, and in this respect a yearning to be raised above a narrow, day-to-day existence into a realm of higher being… The deepest feminine yearning is to achieve a loving union which, in its development, validates this maturation and simultaneously stimulates and furthers the desire for perfection in others… such yearning is an essential aspect of the eternal destiny of woman.[5]

This is a profoundly Christ-like desire, not only to love and to be loved, but to “further the desire for perfection in others.” For Stein, this loving desire that reaches out to others is present in the heart of every woman.

Part Two

[1] Stein, Edith. “Spirituality of the Christian Woman.” http://www.ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/SPIRWOM.HTM

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.