Apr 28, 2020
"I would have accepted a sad
life, but not one that was absurd."
Raïssa Maritain is best known as the wife of Jacques Maritain, one
of the foremost Catholic philosophers of the 20th century whose
work was instrumental in the modern revival of the philosophy of
St. Thomas Aquinas. Raïssa
was a poet, painter, and philosopher in her own right.
We Have Been Friends
Together is Raïssa's
autobiography and a memoir of her marriage to Jacques.
The excerpt featured in today's episode is Raïssa's moving account of the fateful afternoon when she and Jacques, both in their 20's and still students at the Sorbonne, make a suicide pact together. Disillusioned by the nihilism that dominated their philosophical studies, Jacques and Raïssa—still at this point agnostic and atheist—resolve either to discover the meaning of life or else to end it. It was this resolution that set them on a path that would ultimately lead to Christ and to His Church.
Links
Donate at: http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio
Theme music: 2 Part Invention, composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.