“The evangelist Luke
pointedly captures this reality when he describes how
Mary
and Joseph searched “anxiously” for their Son, employing a word he uses only
one other time in his Gospel, when describing the fiery anguish experienced
by
the rich man in hades (see Luke 16:24-25)”.
Taken from: Science of the Cross:
Edith Stein's Theocentric Humanism | Church Life Journal | University of Notre
Dame
Science of the Cross:
Edith Stein’s Theocentric Humanism
by Clement Harrold August 09, 2024
….
Finding God Within: The
Science of the Cross and the Fifth Joyful Mystery
Although Stein only touches briefly on Luke’s story of
the finding of the child Jesus in the temple (see Luke 2:41-52) … the
Gospel vignette nevertheless offers a helpful lens through which to understand
the way the science of the cross functions in the life of the Christian.
Certainly Stein accepts the biblical notion that the human person is a temple
in which God dwells … a concept she sometimes expresses in the language
of sanctuary: “Human beings are called upon to live in their inmost
region. . . .
The angels have the task of protecting it. Evil
spirits seek to gain control of it. God himself has chosen it as his dwelling.” …. Given Stein’s conviction that the essential task
of the scientist of the cross is that of discovering God within the sanctuary
of the self, what lessons might she then draw from the fifth joyful mystery?
A few thoughts will suffice.
When Mary and Joseph finally discover their beloved
Son after three days of searching, theirs is the relief not only of finding
their child again, but also of discovering that their experience of profound
pain and loss took place for a reason: Jesus knew what he was doing all along.
Yet we know that the dark night preceding this joy was an agonizing one.
Presumably Mary and Joseph had already experienced various nights of the
senses, whether in the ordeal of the Bethlehem birth, the tragedy of the Holy Innocents,
or the forced flight into Egypt. On the occasion of losing their Son, however,
night was to be far more painful, far more extreme: a night of the soul, not of
the senses, where God himself is removed from their midst. The evangelist Luke
pointedly captures this reality when he describes how Mary and Joseph searched
“anxiously” for their Son, employing a word he uses only one other time in his
Gospel, when describing the fiery anguish experienced by the rich man in hades
(see Luke 16:24-25). This points us to a startling truth: for Mary and
Joseph, the three days of searching were hell on earth. In their
ultimate act of theomimesis, Jesus’s human parents were rewarded—albeit
passively, and certainly not through their own choosing—with a taste of the
same abandonment which he himself would experience on Calvary.
Yet the abandonment does not last forever, and it
gives way to a deeper discovery of self. For this reason, to view the finding
in the temple as nothing more than a bizarre anecdote speaking of the need for
parental vigilance is to miss the point entirely. After all, it is not some
failing on the part of Mary or Joseph which causes their Christ to go missing,
but rather a deliberate decision on his part. Christ consciously allows his
human parents to feel the loss of his presence in order that they might discover
themselves more intimately in him. This reality finds symbolic expression in
the temple itself, which in the Christian tradition (as Stein herself points
out) at once represents the human being and the person of
Christ. It is in the temple that Mary and Joseph discover Jesus, and it is in
the temple of our souls that we discover that same Christ-child who permits our
pains for a time, but always for the deeper purpose of love.
Transformation in Charity
In a profound way, the finding in the temple points to
that lived experience of charity which forms the apotheosis of Stein’s science
of the cross. Consider the question on the lips of Mary and Joseph when they
are finally reunited with their Child: “Son, why have you treated us so?” (Luke
2:48). It is a question which echoes down the ages in the heart of every
believer who has ever experienced intense pain; in the midst of grief,
loneliness, trauma, and hurt, our cry to Jesus becomes no less spirited than that
of his human parents: “Why, Jesus, why have you treated us so?”
For Stein, through the science of the cross, it is love which stands as the
answer to this question. Love is why he has treated us so, and our final
transformation in charity is the reason he asks us to suffer—and to discover
ourselves in him. Commenting on Christ’s cryptic response to his parents (“Did
you not know I must be about my Father’s business?”), Stein cites from John of
the Cross in his own commentary on these first-recorded words of the Savior:
Nothing
else can be meant by that which is the eternal Father’s business than the
salvation of the world, above all the salvation of souls, since Christ our Lord
applied the means foreordained by the eternal Father. . . . But what is most
wonderful and divine is to cooperate in the conversion of souls and in bringing
them home; for in this God’s own activity is reflected and this imitation is
the greatest glory. That is why Christ, our Lord, called this the work of his
Father, the business of his Father. It is also an evident truth that sympathy
with the neighbor grows the more, the more the soul is united with God through
love. ….
The Son is about the Father’s business: namely, the
salvation of sinners, and the proliferation of love. For Stein, as for John of
the Cross, the soul encounters God within the deepest recesses of her soul, and
that encounter cannot leave her unchanged. A metamorphosing union now takes
place: a union manifested in charity and in the soul’s “supernatural
transformation” in God. ….
It now becomes evident that the science of the cross
is precisely for the sake of that “transforming union through perfect love that
divinizes the soul.” …. To be sure, union with God
is the primary goal of the science, and Stein is careful to highlight Christ’s
insistence that his followers “seek first the kingdom” (Mt 6:33). …. From this thoroughly theocentric point of
departure, however, a horizontal dimension of charity also begins to emerge,
and the science of the cross completes its cruciform structure.
For Stein, worship must indeed precede ethics; love of
God ranks before love of neighbor. At the same time, the two maxims are not
competitive in her thinking, but rather complementary. Love of God is
incarnated through the love of neighbor; theomimesis is ever a communal affair.
Stein is emphatic: “Self-fulfillment, union with God, and laboring for the
union of others with God and for their self-fulfillment belong inseparably
together.” …. Through the power of the cross, the
people of God are gathered into one and bonded together in perfect charity. In
their shared participation in Christ’s sufferings, the body of believers
discover themselves in God and in one another: “And all the
holy souls together form on their part a garland, which the bride-Church weaves
together with Christ the Bridegroom.” ….
Conclusion
The finding in the temple is illustrative of the
painful but life-giving role which the science of the cross must play in the
life of the Christian. It is suggestive, too, of a distinctively theocentric
humanism which is the hallmark of Stein’s thinking, and a possible
interpretative key for unlocking her theological vision. Stein’s profound
reflections on the cross present a challenge to modern man to ponder anew that
mystery of mysteries: almighty and transcendent God nailed naked to a tree. For
Stein, it is by taking this reality to heart that our conception of the human
person is unalterably elevated. As such, an authentic humanism must begin and
end with the divine; only then can the dignity of the human person be secured:
“So the bridal union of the soul with God is the goal for which she was
created, purchased through the cross, consummated on the cross and sealed for
all eternity with the cross.” …. Divinization
through suffering—theosis through kenosis—is the promise Christ extends to all
mankind, and one in which we are invited to share. Herein lies Stein’s science
of the cross, and the only reliable seedbed for an authentically Christian
humanism.
….
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