Edith Stein was born in 1891 to a Jewish family living in Breslau, Germany. From a very young age she was intellectually curious and loved to learn. She rejected her family’s Jewish piety and even God because her observation was that people acted as though they did not believe in God. She was a brilliant university student and graduated summa cum laude with a doctoral degree in philosophy. She became the assistant to one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, Edmund Husserl, who recognized and admired her intellectual gifts.
In 1921 Edith had a conversion experience. At age 30, she began reading the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila in a friend’s library and couldn’t put it down. “This is the truth!” she exclaimed. She converted to Catholicism and was baptized on New Year’s Day, 1922.
Edith soon became well regarded as a Catholic philosopher and author. She left her university appointment as Husserl’s assistant and took a position teaching at a Dominican college for women teachers in Speyer, Germany. While there, she studied the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and published the first German translation of his treatise The Truth. She also lectured widely to Catholic women’s groups throughout Europe. Read More Here.