The relevance of theological thought of the Blessed J. Matulaitis in the context of modern problems

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos ryškiausios J. Matulaičio teologinės įžvalgos ir jų aktualumas tiek jo laikmečio, tiek dabarties problemų kontekste. Darbe stengiamasi pristatyti Palaimintojo teologinį kristocentrizmą – J. Matulaitis iškelia Jėzaus asmenį kaip meilės ir žmogaus savirealizacijos modelį. Šis modelis ugdo žmogaus individualumą ir skatina tarnauti kitiems žmonėms. Kartu Kristaus asmuo pristatomas kaip humanizmo, aktyviai ir veiksmingai kuriančio brandesnę, darnesnę ir laimingesnę visuomenę, pagrindasChristocentrism is typical to J. Matulaitis’ theological heritage. The Blessed J. Matulaitis treated Christian life in terms of faith and from the point of view of Christ’s person. His christocentristic perspective underwent gradual formation. If in Fribourg Matulaitis often repeated Deus in omnia inferre, so in Vilnius period his main slogan was Christum in omnia inferred. It is a clear slip from “abstract” faith to more personal relation between a human person and the Savior. According to him, christocentrism discloses God’s kenosisand immanence. Fur-thermore, God incorporates his divinity in Jesus’ person, making human person very noble. In Jesus’ person we see the image of serving God, who becomes a model of thought and activity to Matulaitis. Thus the image of God and Man becomes the model of love. Love, as seen by Matulaitis, is a dynamic and developing process, directing a human being to God and perfecting him as a creature. So realization and actu-alization of love must start from the human person. Matulaitis claims self-education to be the most important cultural, intellectual, scientific and spiritual activity. Only a highly-educated and mature personality can understand social dynamics, different challenges and arrange the solution of the problems. This way Matulaitis stresses the importance of individual education and its development. Individuality, nurtured in the light of faith, becomes the enrichment of all the society and standoff to egoism. In the nurtur-ing of human individuality, the dimension of human integrity is very important. In Matulaitis times, there flourished definite dualism, distinguishing between human body and soul. Matulaitis considers a human being as undivided oneness, with equally valuable bodily and spiritual springs. So the mystery of Incarnation enables him to speak about the value of human body, what was not common to the Church of those days. [...]Vytauto Didžiojo universiteta