St. Edith Stein, Jewish German Carmelite martyr, continues to become more recognized and widely read by academic scholars and lay persons alike. The case to make her a Doctor of the Church is currently underway. The writings she left to the world span the range of philosophical treatises to theological investigations; to popular lectures on educational theory and vocational discernment; to poetry, personal letters, and spiritual reflections. As a convert, Stein travelled a journey from losing her faith, through scrutinizing the arguments for God as an atheist, and eventually finding the depths of love in Christ’s cross. Her writings are valuable for the wide range of fields, including psychology, phenomenology, theology, ethics, politics, and pedagogy. One of the most compelling aspects of Stein’s work for many readers is her attention to the source and depths of individual uniqueness, and stemming from this, she uplifts the resulting gifts and responsibilities of relationship—familial, political, and Trinitarian.
Technologization of the Workplace
New technological developments change expectations for work and personal relationships with each passing generation. Today, we may enter the clinic for attentive, compassionate care by another human, but it may be algorithmic analysis to thank for a life-saving diagnosis. AI may be incapable of true attention or compassion, but thankfully for us, it helps our doctors to keep us healthy. We may be tasked with creating a new marketing scheme, and in doing so, are requested to rely on an AI design program rather than await the patient spark of inspiration. And tomorrow, we may ask for a drink, and the bartender handing us the menu may be a faceless but friendly Optimus humanoid robot. We hesitantly imagine a future where many types of work could be assisted or replaced by machines. Our own service may be relegated to the ‘human in the loop,’ overseeing yet not interfering.
In the workforce, humans fear the risks of overwork, disregard, and ultimately perhaps replacement. Catholic social teaching speaks against the dehumanization of work, the injustice of an unfair wage, and disadvantages of technological development that pursues advancements for their own sake without application to real need. It is possible to view work simply as a means for a salary without a sensitivity to the service it should offer to the world. Yet, justice demands striving to preserve the humanity, value, and eschatological mission of work. There is more to the content of human work than merely a display of movement and might, or a resulting product to satisfy fleeting consumerist delight. Automatons cannot be overworked—and they cannot even fear. What meaningful difference can a human presence make? Yet, perhaps a proper relationship between a person and one’s work can help to restore meaning to communities impacted by human pride and the technocratic paradigm.
The mission of work is to transform the world for the better and to likewise transform the individual who persists in the work. The Catechism highlights that “Work honors the Creator’s gift and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. … ‘Work is for man, not man for work’” (§2427–8). Here, we can draw from Stein’s insights to further uplift the value of human work. What I offer here is only the beginning of what deserves a much larger and fuller investigation into Stein’s contributions to such a reflection. I will point out here only two beginning examples of ways in which Stein can contribute to discussions about the value of human work: through her own lived example and her suggestions for vocational formation.
Insights from Edith Stein as Health-Care Worker
From the moments she describes in her autobiography of her work as a nurse, we find a first lesson from Stein about work: if work does not seek the other, it loses meaning. Stein served as a nurse during World War I in a lazaretto (an infectious-disease hospital). It was all too easy to seep into the grip of apathy, to lose a sense of purpose amidst in the friction of the mundane, and overlook opportunities for a more transformative encounter with the other. “I got the impression that the sick were not used to getting loving attention and that volunteer helpers therefore could find endless opportunities to show their own compassion and love of neighbor in these places of suffering” (Life in a Jewish Family 298). Stein was willing to devote the effort to personally connect with her patients. She noticed the needs overlooked by everyone else.
Stein noted the difference between a nurse who mechanistically completed her tasks versus one who wanted to offer care from a place of love. “I got along with the nurses. They carried out their duties capably and diligently, although one had the impression that in this they were motivated more by ambition than by a love for humanity” (Life 331). In attending to one’s ‘ambition’ or personal desires alone, one misses the significance of work as ordered to relationship. It is not just something to be ‘done’ but something through which one comes closer to others.
We can compare and contrast Stien’s approach to her work to that of nursing robots, such as Grace by Hanson Robotics or Pepper by SoftBank Robotics. Pepper was used by hospitals in Japan and some European countries during the COVID-19 pandemic to help greet and inform hospital visitors or even assist patients with video calls to family members. Nursing robots are designed to help with basic care tasks, especially when the patient-nurse ratio is strained. These are all helpful tasks that can contribute to preventing undue exposure to infection for a health care team. While such uses are obviously advantageous, the development of these robots still invites a pause for reflection on the differences in the meaning of work performed by a machine versus a person. When a robot offers care, it is because it has been programmed to do so. When a human offers care, it necessarily admits a prioritization of attention to the recipient over other potential interests, and it demonstrates an investment of time that could have otherwise been devoted to other tasks. Thus, a human act reveals the values of the human actor. Stein’s precious time with patients revealed to them that they mattered to someone, that they still had a role and place in the world even as they lie in recovery. For Stein, visits with patients were not just an occasion to fulfill tasks but also an occasion to look for ways to put the patient in a better state than he was in before. “The nursing aides had always just put his food there and then taken it away again without checking whether he had even touched it. I now arranged to be there at mealtimes, and I spooned as much as possible into him” (Life 359). In feeding another, Stein took delight in a simple, perhaps even hidden, act of care that revealed his presence was valued.
Stein’s devoted herself to her patients for purposes of necessity or efficiency but for the patient’s wellbeing and the support of his flourishing. “I sat up wide aware in the high bed and looked out the huge window at the Beczwa and at the Helfenstein on the crest of the hill. …But I though of my patients, and I was glad when morning arrived and I could convince myself that they lacked nothing” (Life 360). In her work, Stein recognized evident needs and decisively responded to them. At times, she prudently slowed down in her tasks to be more attentive to a patient. She found occasions to offer hospitality and appreciation for the array of persons who crossed her path. While her experiences as a nurse were prior to her conversion, eventually she would come to see the work of God in the arrangement of such serendipitous encounters. Her patients were meant for her, and she for her patients. They taught one another lessons of human love needed for their respective vocations.
Insights from Edith Stein as Teacher
Turning toward a second lesson about work offered by Stein, we gain a perspective of how work is a personal gift and is connected to an individual calling. Each person should be properly attuned to interpret and seek the communal and spiritual significance of one’s work. After her conversion and prior to entering the Carmelites, Stein served as a teacher for a number of years. She became a popular speaker on educational theory, particularly as applicable to young female students. In this role as teacher, Stein encouraged attentiveness to the unique gifts of each individual student, and even more, she sought to point students toward relationship with God. Personal discourse with God would draw out the irrevocable calling to the way in which that student would serve the Body of Christ in the world. In her public lectures, Stein critiqued educational systems solely focused on political or economic ends that overlooked the unique attributes and vocational needs of women and, even more fundamentally, of individuals. Her words spoken to early 20th-century Europe still offer necessary insights for today.
In work, we reveal ourselves, and we also help the other come to better know his or her own self as reflected and held in the enframement of our love. To prepare a human person for the gift of self that they offer in their work, Stein finds it pivotal to cultivate interior development: “What materials does the soul need for its development?” (Essays 135) One’s heavenly destiny is the ultimate goal of education and work.
The world beyond the classroom—whether one’s anticipated work may be within the home, in an office, or within the chapel of a convent—contains a network of interrelationships to which to offer care and contribution. Students must learn to grow within such relationships and to answer to their responsibilities within them. Further, they must recognize the higher purpose and meaning of these relationships in light of the Eucharistic community, which embraces all of the universe. “Teaching girls to know and understand the world and people, and learn how to associate with them, should be considered the essential duty of the school. It has become impressively clear to us that a right relation to our fellow creatures is only possible within the framework of a right relation to the Creator” (138).
Individuals have personal gifts to contribute to their roles in the world, gifts that are irreplaceable. “[Vocational preparation] appears to me to lie in the interest of personality formation. Individual abilities and energies of the mature person strive toward practical effect and capable performance. …The vocation is the place where the individual is incorporated into the community or into the function which he has to fulfill in the organism of community” (141). Work is a path for a human finding one’s way in the world, an opportunity to clarify personal identity in light of selfless mission to the community beyond the self.
There seems to be a divine purpose for the individual personality brought to human work—showcasing all of the angles and dimensions of God’s own love. Machines that replace human relationship rather than support human relationship can sever our access to the personalities of our brothers and sisters. We should celebrate and learn from each of these personalities, as each are a distinct work of the Creator. Further, work offers a chance for further perfection in the virtues that conform a person to Christ, who Himself worked as carpenter, teacher, healer, and savior. Uplifting the mutual gift of one another also helps to highlight our shared human destiny: “I have… emphasized well enough that women just as men are individuals whose individuality must be taken into consideration in educational work. However, in order to avoid a misunderstanding, it is perhaps not superfluous to emphasize that women and men are given a common goal of education as human beings: ‘You are to be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect’” (142).
Stein thinks that there is something to be learned about each individual, from the revelation of the person through one’s activity. This is true of both human action and divine action: “But in the case of any knowledge of persons, rather than disclosing [erschliessen] oneself, one may close oneself [verschliessen]—even withdraw behind one’s own work. In this case the work still means something, retains an objective significance, but it no longer opens up access to the person, it no longer provides the contact of one mind with the other. God wishes to let himself be found by those who seek him. Hence he wishes first to be sought” (Knowledge and Fatih, 113). We can love a little more like God if we allow another to see our love and care in our work. We can reveal the depths of our hearts through our actions.
The greatest education for our the work to which we are personally assigned comes from grace. Unlike robots and algorithms, we choose where to dispense our attention and love, and our actions convey meaning. Grace helps us to find meaning and be meaningful in our work, even if it is side-by-side with machines and automatons. We seek to help grace move us to the right work, and we hope to work on behalf of further grace in the world. As we look through our own high windows at the crest of our own complex landscape, what needs captivate us and drive us to our feet the next morning?
For Further Reading
Stein, Edith. Life in a Jewish Family. Translated by Josephine Koeppel. Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1986.
Stein, Edith. Essays on Woman. Translated by Freda Mary Oben. Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 1996.
Stein, Edith. Knowledge and Faith. Translated by Walter Redmond. Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 2000.
A.I. Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See. Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations. Pickwick Publications, 2024.
About the Author
Mariele Courtois, Ph.D. is a theological biomedical ethicist whose research focusses on questions surrounding genetic engineering. She is an Assistant Professor of Moral Theology at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. As a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education’s AI Research Group, she is a contributing author of Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations (Pickwick Publications, 2024).
Originally published by at eitw.nd.edu on February 22, 2025.