Quote of the day, 15 December: St. Edith Stein

“I need Carmel… with its perfection and way of perfection, Carmel with its purity, its apostolate, its martyrdom; Carmel with its special love for the sacred humanity of our Lord and its veneration of the Blessed Virgin without being restricted to one of her states or mysteries.”

Sister Marie-Aimée de Jésus, writing about her vocation

Saint Edith Stein
A Chosen Vessel of Divine Wisdom: Sr. Marie-Aimée de Jésus of the Carmel of the Avenue de Saxe in Paris 1839–1874

Concerning A Chosen Vessel of Divine Wisdom, Saint Edith Stein wrote to Mother Johanna van Weersth, O.C.D. in 1940: “I am sending Your Reverence a little biography of Sr. Marie-Aimée. I wrote it more than a year ago for a collection that was supposed to come out around Easter. But now it cannot be published before the end of the war. In any case, Sr. M. Electa will be interested in it. Her translation, which we read at table, led me to choose M.-Aimée when I was asked for a portrait of a Carmelite” (Letter 316).

Stein, E. 2014, The Hidden Life: hagiographic essays, meditations, spiritual texts, translated from the German by Stein, W, ICS Publications, Washington DC.