Events of Blaise Pascal - World of Biography

TOWARDS RELIGION

Blaise Pascal had a cultured childhood. He was conditioned in a way that his religious beliefs and thoughts remained typical, that did not match his liberal personality. When Mersenne, who belonged to the religious order of the Minims, introduced Pascal to the idea of spirituality, he was only 16. However, this exposure to spirituality was only a beginning. Pascal had never read about philosophy or religion BLAISE PASCAL till 1646. It was only after he met two Jansenite priests named Deschamps Brothers - the Sieur des Landes and the Sieur de la Bouteillerie, in January 1646, that his interest in religion began to develop.

In that January the same year, during his father’s stay in Normandy, as a high official in government, Etienne accidentally slipped over on the glacier and injured his leg seriously. The two Deschamps brothers took care of him. Blaise was influenced by these priests’ humanistic nature and started reading Bible. Thus started Pascal’s foray into religion and spirituality.

What they drank from the brothers was that basic Christianity places the eternal above the temporal, the unseen above the seen and inculcates complete detachment from worldly standards of value, much waiting upon God for his disclosure of vocation. The movement laid stress on the duty of submission to the Church and of the Sacraments.

CONVERSION

Eight years before his death, when Pascal was 31, he had a divine experience whereupon he could feel the presence of God. He jotted down his overwhelming memories of this experience on a piece of leather, and sewed it into the lining of his coat. He never liked to share the sanctity of the experience. Today we know about it due to a note found by Pascal’s servant from his coat after his death. It is interesting to know that he kept this note every time he wore his coat. The note revealed that the event that occurred on November 23, 1654 completely changed Pascal’s life. After that, he devoted himself completely to religion. A single divine glimpse transformed the scientist into an apologist. Blaise Pascal’s Confession, ‘The night that he came to Him in prayer’ was translated by Emile Caillet and John C. Blankenagel. The translation follows:

His Confession

In the year of Grace, 1654,
On Monday, 23^rd of November, Feast of St. Clement,
Pope and Martyr, and of others in the Martyrology, Vigil of Saint Chrysogonus, Martyr, and others,
From about half past ten in the evening until about
half past twelve,

Fire

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,
Blaise Pascal not of the philosophers and scholars.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
God of Jesus Christ
"Thy God shall be my God."
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything,
except God.
He is to be found only by the ways taught in the
Gospel.
Greatness of the human soul.
"Righteous Father, the world hath not known
Thee, but I have known Thee." [John 17 : 25]
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have separated myself from Him
"My God, wilt Thou leave me ?"
Let me not be separated from Him eternally.
"This is the eternal life, that they might know Thee,
the only true God, and the one whom Thou hast
sent, Jesus Christ" [John 17 : 3]
Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ

I have separated myself from Him : I have fled from
Him, denied Him, crucified Him.
Let me never be separated from Him.
We keep hold of Him only by the ways taught in the
Gospel.
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s training on earth. Amen.