Another Anniversary

November 23rd marks the anniversary of Blaise Pascal’s conversion in 1654.
Though Pascal died short of his 40th birthday his achievement, like his intellect, was towering.
He counted all as nothing in comparison to knowing Christ.
Voltaire, that great cynic of the Enlightenment, loathed Pascal’s theology but declared that Pascal was the greatest man ever to have written in French. He attributed Pascal’s conversion to trauma from a carriage accident which triggered a breakdown leading to religious mania. It is notable that for all his mocking Voltaire cried out to Jesus for mercy on his deathbed. He’d made a famous prediction that 100 years after his death the Bible would be found only in museums.Voltaire’s house is now owned by the Swiss Bible Society. Sweet irony that.
Pascal wrote an account of his conversion and sewed the parchment into his jacket. When he obtained new clothes he would repeat the process. It was found after his death. Evidently he kept it with him to the end of his life .In that testimony one paragraph is headed by the simple word: FIRE
Os Guiness declared that Pascal became a man consumed by divine fire.
In that same record he wrote: “The world forgotten; everything except God…Complete and sweet renunciation.”
He told no one about his conversion. However he did overwhelm everyone with the evidence.
His sister Jacqueline later wrote, “Little by little he changed, so that soon I no longer knew him.”
A Pascal is given to the Church once every century or so.
Let us thank God for his memory.
Let us imitate his fervor.
Let us pray for his successors.