Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain

The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain: A Spiritual Life by Ralph McInerny, 211 pages

In Ralph McInerny's account of the thought of Jacques Maritain, one of the recurrent themes is the Thomistic distinction between the knowledge connected with thinking and the knowledge associated with inclination.  In his account of the life of Jacques and his wife Raissa, the attainment of both kinds of knowledge is the central theme.  The couple heroically sought not only to know virtue and holiness as concepts but to live them as realities, dedicating themselves to the truth they found in the conclusion of Leon Bloy's The Woman Who Was Poor - "There is only one tragedy in life, not to be a saint."

McInerny (a philosopher by trade but best known as the creator of Father Dowling) models the biography on the hours of the Divine Office - Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline - tracking the life of his subject from the dark of the morning to the dark of the evening.  Throughout, the personal lives of the Maritains are interwoven with the development of Jacques' philosophy.  The result is revelatory - a biography of a public intellectual and an examination of the thought of a great philosopher, but also a demonstration of what philosophy and faith can offer each other, and what both can offer life.