Age-Old Battle
At the end of 1938, Edith Stein was moved from her monastery in Cologne to the Carmel of Echt in Holland. Her superiors hoped that, there, she would be less exposed to Nazi persecution. She had, however, as a Jew, to report in person to the occupying forces. Turning up at HQ in Maastricht, she was struck by its ordinariness. It was just a busy office like any other busy office, full of girls with typewriters, their minds half on the work in hand, half on their evening engagement. How deceptively innocuous is the bureaucracy of evil! Edith’s discomfort grew while she waited. It reached its pitch when she was summoned to appear before officers of the Gestapo, whose standard greeting was, ‘Heil Hitler!’ Edith promptly declared, ‘Praised be Jesus Christ!’ She later told her prioress she knew this response could be perceived as an outright provocation, but she could do nothing else. Then and there, she said, she was intensely conscious of being caught up in the age-old battle between Jesus and Lucifer. Each day’s task is to acquire wisdom to recognise the terms of this battle, courage to step forward when we are called, grace to let Jesus work his victory through us. His strength is made perfect in our weakness if only we place that weakness unreservedly at his disposal.
