The Honor Of God

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) studying the cycloid, engraved on the tablet he is holding in his left hand; the scattered papers at his feet are his Pensées, the open book his Lettres provinciales. Exhibited at the Salon of 1785; the plaster model was exhibited at the Salon of 1781.
Pascal finally decided to write his work of Christian apologetics, Apologie de la religion chrétienne, as a consequence of his meditations on miracles and other proofs of Christianity. The work remained unfinished at his death. Between the summers of 1657 and 1658, he put together most of the notes and fragments that editors have published under the inappropriate title Pensées (“Thoughts”; Eng. trans., Pensées, 1962). In the Apologie, Pascal shows the man without grace to be an incomprehensible mixture of greatness and abjectness, incapable of truth or of reaching the supreme good to which his nature nevertheless aspires. A religion that accounts for these contradictions, which he believed philosophy and worldliness fail to do, is for that very reason “to be venerated and loved.” The indifference of the skeptic, Pascal wrote, is to be overcome by means of the “wager”: if God does not exist, the skeptic loses nothing by believing in him; but if he does exist, the skeptic gains eternal life by believing in him. Pascal insists that men must be brought to God through Jesus Christ alone, because a creature could never know the infinite if Jesus had not descended to assume the proportions of man’s fallen state. The second part of the work applies the Augustinian theory of allegorical interpretation to the biblical types (figuratifs); reviews the rabbinical texts, the persistence of true religion, the work of Moses, and the proofs concerning Jesus Christ’s God-like role; and, finally, gives a picture of the primitive church and the fulfillment of the prophecies. The Apologie (Pensées) is a treatise on spirituality. Pascal was not interested in making converts if they were not going to be saints. Pascal’s apologetics, though it has stood the test of time, is primarily addressed to individuals of his own acquaintance. To convert his libertine friends, he looked for arguments in their favourite authors: in Michel de Montaigne, in the Skeptic Pierre Charron, in the Epicurean Pierre Gassendi, and in Thomas Hobbes, an English political philosopher. For Pascal, Skepticism was but a stage. Modernist theologians in particular have tried to make use of his main contention, that “man is infinitely more than man,” in isolation from his other contention, that man’s wretchedness is explicable only as the effect of a Fall, about which a man can learn what he needs to know from history. In so doing, they sacrifice the second part of the Apologie to the first, keeping the philosophy while losing the exegesis. For Pascal as for St. Paul, Jesus Christ is the second Adam, inconceivable without the first. Finally, too, Pascal expressly admitted that his psychological analyses were not by themselves sufficient to exclude a “philosophy of the absurd”; to do so, it is necessary to have recourse to the convergence of these analyses with the “lines of fact” concerning revelation, this convergence being too extraordinary not to appear as the work of providence to an anguished seeker after truth (qui cherche en gémissant). He was next again involved in scientific work. First, the “Messieurs de Port-Royal” themselves asked for his help in composing the Élements de géométrie; and second, it was suggested that he should publish what he had discovered about cycloid curves, a subject on which the greatest mathematicians of the time had been working. Once more fame aroused in him feelings of self-esteem; but from February 1659, illness brought him back to his former frame of mind, and he composed the “prayer for conversion” that the English clergymen Charles and John Wesley, who founded the Methodist Church, were later to regard so highly. Scarcely capable of regular work, he henceforth gave himself over to helping the poor and to the ascetic and devotional life. He took part intermittently, however, in the disputes to which the “Formulary”—a document condemning five propositions of Jansenism that, at the demand of the church authorities, had to be signed before a person could receive the sacraments—gave rise. Finally a difference of opinion with the theologians of Port-Royal led him to withdraw from controversy, though he did not sever his relations with them. Pascal died in 1662 after suffering terrible pain, probably from carcinomatous meningitis following a malignant ulcer of the stomach. He was assisted by a non-Jansenist parish priest. –Copyright © Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

By Father Antonio M. Alessi, O.S.B.

The following amazing story is taken from a chapter in a book published in Bombay, India, called Love Without Frontiers. The book is a biography of a zealous Salesian missionary priest still functioning in India, Father Aurelius Maschio. The author, Father Antonio M Alessi, O.S.B., is a friend and fellow laborer.

The theological meaning of the word conversion is a return to God. But in practice, we generally apply the term to the first meeting with God through the assent of faith; passing, that is from atheism or paganism to Christ, insertion in the Church and acceptance of the salvific plan of God.

It is of faith that conversion is not merely the fruit of human effort. It is supernatural in nature and therefore asks for a direct intervention of God. The initiative is His, even if, in practice, He always makes use of secondary causes and respects the voluntary assent of the person.

Beyond this entirely religious aspect, conversion causes deep personal and social changes. Conversion often means denial of all that one has believed, accepted and practiced up to that date. It may mean the supreme test of being excluded from and disowned by tribe, clan, and even one’s own family.

It would be difficult to picture to ourselves the tremendous sacrifices, and inner wrenching and tearing that conversion may require of some of the converts. This is especially true when the religion they abandon can reach impossible peaks of bigoted fanaticism.

What happened in India in 1947, at the time of the partition between India and Pakistan, is not yet forgotten; the massacres of hundreds of thousands purely on religious grounds. For this reason, in India, as well as in other countries, the conversion of a Hindu or Mohammedan can only be the fruit of a singular grace of God, and often of an authentic miracle, as in the following case recounted by Fr Aurelio.

“You have asked me to tell you the story of some remarkable conversion. Listen to the story of Bibi Lal, eighteen years old and endowed with everything a young girl could wish for. She came to the mission wrapped in an ample silk dress, her face covered by a veil, as is the custom with Mohammedan ladies. She was accompanied by two of her cousins.

“Father,” they said, “we have come to you for help. Our cousin here is a prey to an obsession which besets her and menaces to disrupt our whole family.”

“Will you tell me what it is?” I said.

“Well, according to her, a few nights ago she saw your prophet Jesus in a dream. He is supposed to have told her, ‘Daughter, if you want to be happy and find salvation, come to me’.”

“Lord,” she asked Him, “what have I to do?”

“Go to the Catholic Church, ask the priest to teach you all that is required and ask for baptism.”

“And what does she think of such a request?”

“She is convinced that what she saw was real and has insisted since to be brought here to you. She wants to obey what she has heard.”

“But you give me the impression you are not of the same mind.”

“Absolutely not. It would be a shameful disgrace for all the family, which is one of the most respectable in town. According to us, it’s treason and we would be dishonoured for ever.”

“Did you make all these things clear to her?”

“We did. We have tried all means of persuasion. How can we allow her to abandon Allah and his Prophet and turn to a religion we frankly despise.”

“You do not seem to have made much of an inroad, have you?”

“You are right. She just cried and cried and cried and begged to be brought here. She has been saying that she feels life draining out of her and will surely die of a broken heart. Well, we are all really upset, because she is dear, very dear to all of us. That’s the reason why we have brought her here. We hope you will help us dissuade her from this madness.”

“That’s a good one. How can you think I will side with you against her, if it is God who calls her? Even your Koran says clearly that it is not a bad thing to be a disciple of the prophet Jesus. Why don’t you leave her free to decide what is better for her. Both you and I would be shouldering a tremendous responsibility, if we were to stand in the way of a decision that she finds so important and binding.”

I then turned to her, who stood there a little apart, with her head bowed, and said:

“Tell me Bibi Lal, do you really want to know about Jesus and his Church?”

“Oh, Father, with all my heart. I want to stay here and follow His invitation. I know there will be no more happiness for me unless I do that.”

To try and talk the two cousins out of their purpose of opposing her was no easy task. More so since they had come with the conviction that I would be able to dissuade her.

“If, as you insist, you really love her very much,” I said, “leave her free to choose. She will be given all the time she wants to make a careful study of the religion of the Prophet Jesus and compare it with her own, to ponder things carefully, and finally to make up her mind and follow the religion of her choice. I assure you that no one will be allowed to influence or bear pressure upon her and I myself shall scrupulously respect her decision.”

I can’t say they were convinced. They were not. However, they allowed the girl to stay on. I started instructing her in the truths of the Faith. She was a very intelligent girl with a burning desire to learn, so I did not need repeat things twice. She would often exclaim, “Father, how beautiful all this is. Now I can say I am truly happy.”

The words of the Acts constantly kept coming to my mind, “Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him… Jesus Christ is the Lord of all.” (Acts 10, 34-36)

The first time she entered our Church, she observed everything with keen interest and asked an explanation for everything she saw: the altar, the tabernacle, the confessional, the Way of the Cross. She was especially taken up by the statue of Our Lady. But, when she found herself before the statue of the Sacred Heart, she burst out, “There, that’s him, the one I saw, the Jesus who called me here. The same face, the same dress, the same posture, except for the right hand which he raised and moved inviting me to follow him.” When I felt she was ready, I baptized her. She received the Sacrament with visible joy and great devotion. “The best day of my life,” she went on repeating, “the best day of my life.”

She chose Mary as her name. “She will keep me by her side,” she explained, “and she will help and protect me. With her, I’ll be faithful to the end of my life.”

Before going home, she asked for a souvenir of that great day. I gave her a scapular of Our Lady and a little statue of the Sacred Heart. She was beaming. She thanked me and begged, “Father; several little nieces of mine live near our house. Would you kindly give me a few pictures and medals for them too? Who knows but someday…”

Then, before I could stop her, she got hold of my hand, covered it with her white veil and kissed it.

This wonderful conversion filled me with joy. And it was on that occasion that I understood fully the meaning of Our Lord’s parable about the labourer who finds a treasure in a field, sells all he has to buy the field and take possession of the treasure; and the other about the merchant who finds a pearl of inestimable price, sells all his possessions and buys it! (Mt. 13, 44-46)

Happy indeed is the man who finds Christ, for peace and salvation will be his.