Our MOMS ENDOW study on JPII's "Letter to Women" has been discussing the influence of Edith Stein, philospher, convert, teacher, Carmelite, mystic, & martyr on the development of the Catholic "New Feminism." She was my Confirmation saint and seems to be one of those saints who finds me when I need her to teach me something. Our ENDOW study sent me back to this
biography that has been on our shelves here at home but that I hadn't ever read. Here's a collection of quotes from it so far that continue to make me think:
The one thing a person needs to keep doing is to try live out his chosen vocation with an ever-increasing honesty and purity, to make it an acceptable oblation for those with whom he is united.
If, up to now, a person has been more or less contented with himself, the time for that is over. He will do what he can to change the unpleasant things he finds in himself, but he will discover quite a bit that can't be called beautiful and yet will be nearly impossible to change. As a result he will slowly become small and humble, increasingly patient and tolerant toward specks in his brothers' eyes, now that he has so much trouble with the beam in his own. Eventually, he'll be able to look at himself in the unblinking light of the divine presence and learn to entrust himself to the power of the divine mercy.
It is faith in our hidden stories that ought to console us when what we see externally in ourselves and in others tends to depress us.
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