Jakub Maritain - mistrz życia wewnętrznego ludzi świeckich

Abstrakt

The author bases himself on J. Maritain’s works, especially on his last book Le paysan de la Garonne and on the autobiographic book written by his wife: Great Friendships. The latter presents an „old layman from the Garonne” as a protagonist of the new civilization grounded on the Gospel which civilization Paul VI calls „the civilization of love”, and which John Paul II often calls the civilization of „human solidarity”. In the end of his life (in 1971) Maritain took religious vows in the Order of the Little Brothers of Jesus, but did not cease to be a layman.

1. Maritain’s „integral humanism” was born out of his experience of spirituality. That humanism was opposed to anthropocentric, lay and incomplete humanism, since the latter does not take into account the basic relation of man to God, to other people and to the whole created world. The exceptional dignity of a person comes from the primacy of the spirit over the body, and from the person’s rationality and freedom. His research on natural law and man’s rights paved the way for the Common Declaration of Man’s Rights. In his works he pointed to its dignity and great value.

Maritain thought that the new world should be built on the foundation of an authentic Christian humanism which is teocentric, and on „the aristocracy of work” and personalistic democracy. He took the words of his godfather, L. Bloy, who said: „there is only one reason to sorrow − not to be holy” as the motto of his own life. He wrote that „if Christians do not desire holiness, they betray God and the world”. The author characterizes the kind of holiness which Maritain put into practice as „the holiness of intellect”. It expresses itself in the heroic faithfulness to the Truth and in „radical sincerity”, whose source was contemplation comprehended as a kind of cognition trough love. Maritain became a contemplator „on the way” on which he was able to introduce others. Thus he became for many of his contemporary lay people a master of inner life. Jacque and Raissa Maritain exerted a beneficial influence on the close members of her Jewish family. First, her sister Vera was baptized, then her father and mother, and later Ernest Psichari, Renan’s grandson, H. Massis, R. Vallery-Radot, J. Copeau − head of „Nouvelle Revue Française”, H. Happenot, K. Henrion - writer, and poets: J. Cocteau, P. Sabon and M. de Gournay.

Maritain exerted a great influence on the renaissance of Catholicism in France and beyond its borders. He also had an influence on the preparation of the documents of Vatican Council II.

Among Polish Maritainists one can name prof. Cz. Strzeszewski, his disciples and people connected with Laski, a village in the vicinity of Warsaw.