Rev. Aleksander Woźny's Concept of Spiritual Childhood.

Abstract

Rev. Aleksander Woźny lived, worked, taught and ministered in a big parish of St. John Cantius Church in Poznań. He was truly a very good priest, who died in the opinion of sainthood. He proposed a new model in the spiritual life - spiritual childhoo d, which he developed when he was a prisoner at the Dachau concentration camp, inspired by "The Story of a Soul" by St. Therese of Lisieux.

The purpose of the article is to present  spiritual childhood as a certain concept - a proposal for the development of the inner life for every believer who pursues holiness and union with God in love, which was primarily the "path" of Rev. A. Woźny. This attitude accompanied him throughout his life and permeated his entire teaching. Spiritual  childhood shaped itself in him. It was conditioned throughout his life by many facts, which contain the essential features of a spirituality that offers everything to God: one's will, intellect (the authority of the soul), misery and sin, supernatural gifts, entrusting one's whole life to God, in a spirit of submission, diminishing oneself through the imitation of Jesus and entrusting oneself to the Mother of God. This spiritual way is fulfilled by specific means: prayer, sacramental life, asceticism. The Biblical ground of spiritual childhood is found in the words of Christ: "Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Mk 10:15). It is thus an awareness of one's own inadequacy, while simultaneously being open and trusting as well as entrusting to God as Father, seeking direct communion with God in love. This union, as the essence and purpose of the Christian life, eventually implies holiness and union with Christ, which can be realized in different ways and manifests itself in all aspects of life, in both clergy and laity, taking into account the specificities of each calling, which leads to a perfect likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3, 18) (CC 50).

The article describes the conditions of his spiritual life. It indicates the basis of spiritual childhoo d, showing its essential  features  as  well  as  methods  and  means  of  realization. Rev. Woźny shaped his concept of childhood throughout almost all his life. His way of thinking and acting was formed by many factors that affected the climate of his faith during the relevant period in which he lived.  The  article  contains  a  presentation  and  evaluation  of Rev. Aleksander Woźny's theological concept of spiritual childhoo d. It focuses on the basics of spiritual childhoo d, which shows the Triune God as the source  of spirituality, outlining its subjective dimension, which is the foundation of the theological virtues of spiritual childhoo d, and the Church as a place to build communion with God. The article examines the ways and means of realizing  spiritual  childhood through prayer, understood as a childlike devotion to God and the ascetic life. It emphasizes the role and importance of the sacraments, and the path of  childhood as the means of personal holiness in the life of Rev. Woźny.

This is a universal concept, one of the possibilities, which need not put aside other ways of spiritual development that through particular stages leads to excellence and communion with God Himself. The secret lies in the voluntary choice of the model, which Rev. A. Woźny himself called the shortest and surest way to  God.