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Image: Painting of Pascal made by François II Quesnel for Gérard Edelinck in 1691
Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter, Sublimitas et Miseria Hominis
“The sublimity and misery of man”
on the fourth centenary of the birth of Blaise Pascal
This paradox (i.e. sublimitas et miseria hominis) is at the heart of the thought and enduring message of Blaise Pascal, who was born four centuries ago, on 19 June 1623 in Clermont in central France.
From childhood, Pascal dedicated his life to the search for truth. Through the use of reason, he sought its traces in the fields of mathematics, geometry, physics and philosophy, making remarkable discoveries and achieving great fame even at an early age. But he was not content with those achievements.
In a century of great advances in many fields of science, accompanied by a growing spirit of philosophical and religious skepticism, Blaise Pascal proved to be a tireless seeker of truth, a “restless” spirit, open to ever new and greater horizons.
Pascal’s brilliant and inquisitive mind never ceased to ponder the ancient yet ever new question that wells up in the human heart: “What is man that you are care for him, the son of man that you care for him?” ( Ps 8:5).
This question has perplexed men and women of every time and place, of every culture, language and religion. “What is man in nature?” Pascal asks “Nothing in relation to the infinite, yet everything in relation to nothing”. (Pensées, B 72, L 199)
The Psalmist asked this question in the context of the history of love between God and his people, a history that culminated in the incarnation of the “Son of Man”, Jesus Christ, whom the Father abandoned to crown him with glory and honor above all creature (cf. v. 6).
To this question, posed in a language so different from that of mathematics and geometry, Pascal continued to devote his attention.
For this reason, I think that it is appropriate to describe Pascal as a man marked by a fundamental attitude of reverence and openness to all reality.
Openness to other dimensions of knowledge and life, openness to others, openness to society.
For example, in Paris in 1661, he developed the first public transportation system in history, the “five-penny coaches”.
If I mention this at the beginning of this letter, it is to make clear that neither his conversion to Christ, which began with the “Night of Fire” on 23 November 1654, nor his masterful intellectual defense of the Christian faith, made him any less a man of his time.
He continued to be concerned with the issues of his age and with the material needs of all the members of the society in which he lived.
This openness to the world around him kept him concerned for others even in his final illness, when he was only thirty-nine years of age.
On this last stage of his earthly pilgrimage, he is reported to have said: “If the doctors are telling the truth, and if God allows me to recover from this illness, I am determined that for the rest of my life I will have no other work or occupation than to serve the poor”. [ G. Perier, Vie de M. Pascal]
It is moving to realize that in the last days of his life, such a great genius as Blaise Pascal saw nothing more urgent than the need to devote his energies to works of mercy: “The sole object of Scripture is charity”. (Pensées, B 670, L 270.)
I am happy that, on this fourth centenary of his birth, God’s Providence has given me the opportunity to pay homage to Pascal and to recall those aspects of his life and thought that I consider helpful in encouraging Christians of our time and their contemporaries of good will in their search for authentic happiness.
For “all of us seek to be happy. This is true without exception, regardless of the different means they use. All tend to the same end”. ( 425, L 148)
Four centuries after his birth, Pascal remains our traveling companion, accompanying us in our quest for true happiness and, through the gift of faith, our humble and joyful recognition of the crucified and risen Lord.
A man in love with Christ, who speaks to everyone
If Blaise Pascal can attract everyone, it is mainly because he spoke so convincingly about our human condition. But it would be a mistake to see him merely as an insightful observer of human behavior. His monumental Pensées, some of whose individual aphorisms remain famous, cannot be truly understood unless we realize that Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures are both their center and the key to their understanding.
For if Pascal proposed to speak of man and God, it was because he had come to the certainty that “not only do we know God only through Jesus Christ, but we know ourselves only through Jesus Christ. We do not know life and death except through Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ, we know neither our life nor our death, neither God nor ourselves.
Therefore, without the Scriptures, which speak only of Jesus Christ, we know nothing and we see only darkness”. (B 546, L 417.). This bold statement needs to be clarified if it is to be understood by all, and not regarded as a purely dogmatic assertion, incomprehensible to those who do not share the faith of the Church, or as a denigration of the legitimate scope of natural reason.
Faith, love and freedom
As Christians, we must avoid the temptation to present our faith as an unquestionable certainty that is obvious to everyone. Clearly, Pascal wanted people to realize that “God and truth are inseparable”, but he also knew that faith is possible only by the grace of God, embraced by a free heart. Through faith he had personally encountered “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and not the God of the philosophers and the learned”, (Pensées (Mémorial), L 913.) and had acknowledged Jesus Christ as “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).
For this reason, I would suggest that anyone who wishes to persevere in the search for truth – a never-ending task in this life – should listen to Blaise Pascal, a man of prodigious intelligence who insisted that no truth is worth having apart from the pursuit of love. “We make an idol of truth itself, for truth, apart from charity, is not God, but his image; it is an idol that must not be loved or worshipped in any way”. (Pensées (Le Mystère de Jésus), B 582, L 926.)
Pascal would thus protect us from the false doctrines, superstitions and libertinism that keep so many people from the lasting peace and joy of the One who desires that we should choose “life and good”, and not “death and evil” ( Deut 30:15.19).
But the tragedy of this life is that we sometimes fail to see clearly, and as a result, we choose poorly.
For we cannot savor the joy of the Gospel unless “the Holy Spirit fills us with his power and frees us from our weakness, our selfishness, our complacency and our pride”. (Gaudete et Exsultate, 65.)
Moreover, “without the wisdom of discernment, we can fallprey to every passing fad”. [10]
Therefore, an appreciation of the living faith of Blaise Pascal, who sought to demonstrate that the Christian religion is “venerable because it truly knows man” and “lovable because it promises true good”, (Pensées, B 187, L 12) can help us make our way through the shadows and sorrows of this world.
An outstanding scientific mind
Blaise Pascal was three years old when his mother died in 1626.
His father, Étienne, a well-known lawyer, was also known for his remarkable scientific talents, particularly in the fields of mathematics and geometry.
Choosing to personally provide for the education of his three children, Jacqueline, Blaise and Gilberte, he moved to Paris in 1632.
Very early on, Blaise showed exceptional intelligence and tenacity in his search for truth. His sister Gilberte tells us that, “from childhood, he could only accept things that seemed to him to be obviously true; consequently, if no good reasons were given, he sought them out himself”. [12]
One day his father found Blaise studying geometry and suddenly realized that, without knowing that the same theorems could be found in books under other names, Blaise, at the age of twelve, had demonstrated the first 32 propositions of Euclid, all by himself, by drawing figures on the floor. [13]
Gilberte recalled that her father was “amazed at the depth and the power of his intellect”. [14]
In the years that followed, Blaise Pascal worked intensely to bring his immense talent to fruition. At seventeen, he was in contact with the most learned men of his time His discoveries and publications followed in rapid succession.
In 1642, at the age of nineteen, he invented a calculating machine, the ancestor of our modern computers.
In this respect, Pascal speaks to our time, reminding us of the greatness of human reason and encouraging us to use it to understand the mysteries of the world around us..
His grasp of mathematics, the ability to understand in detail how things work, would serve him well throughout his life.
In the words of the eminent theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar: “He trained himself in the precision appropriate to mathematics and natural science as such, in order to attain that quite different precision appropriate to the realm of being and to the Christian realm”. [15]
Pascal’s confidence in the use of natural reason, which united him to all seekers of truth, enabled him both to recognize its limits and to be receptive to the supernatural reasons of divine revelation, with that sense of paradox that would find expression in the philosophical depth and literary charm of his Pensées.
“The Church made as much effort to prove that Jesus Christ was a man to those who denied it as she did to prove that he was God; and both were equally obvious” (Pensées, B 7)”. (Pensées, B 764, L 307.)
The Philosophers
Many of Pascal’s writings are imbued with the language of philosophy.
This is especially true of his Pensées, the collection of fragments, published posthumously, that are his notes and sketches for a philosophy inspired by a theological concern.
Scholars have tried, with varying results, to restore the original form and unity of the collection.
Pascal’s passionate love for Christ and for serving the poor, which I mentioned earlier, were not so much the sign of a break in the mind of this bold disciple, as of a deeper growth toward evangelical radicalism, a progression, aided by grace, towards the living truth of the Lord.
Pascal, who possessed the supernatural certainty of faith and considered it fully compatible with reason while infinitely surpassing it, sought as much as possible to engage in dialogue with those who did not share his faith.
For “to those who do not have faith, we cannot give it except by reasoning, as we wait for God to give it to them by moving their hearts”. (B 282, L 110.)
Here we see a totally respectful and patient form of evangelization that our generation would do well to imitate.
In order to understand Pascal’s thought on Christianity, it is necessary to pay attention to his philosophy.
He admired the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosophers, who sought with simplicity and tranquility to live well as citizens of a polis: “We think of Plato and Aristotle as wearing the flowing robes of scholars. They were ordinary people, like everyone else, who enjoyed a good laugh with their friends. When they wrote their Laws and Politics, they did it for pleasure.
It was the least philosophical and least serious part of their lives; the most philosophical part was to live simply and peaceably”. ( B 331, L 533. ).
But. for all their greatness and their usefulness, Pascal recognized the limits of these philosophies: Stoicism leads to pride; [19] skepticism to despair. [20]
Human reason is a marvel of creation, which distinguishes man from all other creatures, for “man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, yet he is a thinking reed”. [21]
The limits of the philosophers are simply the limits of created reason.
Democritus may well say, “I will talk about everything”, [22] but reason alone cannot resolve the deepest and most urgent questions.
In the end, both for Pascal’s age and for our own, what remains the greatest and most urgent question?
It is that of the overall meaning of our destiny, our life and our hope, which is directed towards a happiness that we are not forbidden to imagine as eternal, but which only God can grant: “Nothing is so important to man as his own state; nothing is so dreadful to him as eternity”. [23]
Reflecting on Pascal’s Pensées, we constantly encounter, in one way or another, this fundamental principle: “reality is superior to ideas”.
Pascal teaches us to keep our distance from “various means of concealing reality”, from “angelic forms of purity” to “intellectual discourse devoid of wisdom”. [24]
Nothing is more dangerous than a disembodied reason:
“He who would act as an angel, acts as a beast”. [25]
The pernicious ideologies from which we continue to suffer in the field of economics, social life, anthropology and morality, keep their adherents imprisoned in a world of illusions, where ideas have replaced reality.
The human condition
Pascal’s philosophy, always paradoxical, is based on an approach that is as simple as it is clear: it seeks to arrive at a “reality illuminated by reason”. [26]
He Begins by observing that man is in a sense a stranger to himself, at once great and wretched.
Great because of his reason and his ability to control his passions, but also great “in that he recognizes himself to be wretched”. [27]
Indeed, man strive for something other than satisfying or resisting his instincts, “for what is nature to animals, we call wretchedness in man”. [28]
There is an intolerable imbalance between our boundless desire for happiness and the knowledge of truth, on the one hand, and our limited reason and physical fragility, on the other, which ultimately ends in death.
Pascal’s strength is also his ruthless realism: “”It does not take much intelligence to realize that there is no true and solid satisfaction here below, that all our pleasures are but vanity, that our miseries are infinite, and that death, which constantly threatens us, will in a few years infallibly present us with the terrible alternative of being annihilated or being unhappy for all eternity.
Nothing is more real or frightening. We can act as bravely as we like: this is the end that awaits the best life in the world. [29]”. [29]
In this tragic state, an individual cannot retreat into himself, for his misery and the uncertainty of his fate prove unbearable.
Therefore, he needs to distract himself.
Pascal readily admits this: “Hence it is that men love noise and excitement so much”. [30]
For if man does not divert himself from his condition – and we know very well how to distract ourselves through work, forms of leisure, through family or friendship relationshios,, but also, unfortunately, through the vices to which certain passions lead – his humanity experiences “its nothingness, its abandonment, its inadequacy, its dependence, its powerlessness, its emptiness. [And from the depths of his soul emerge ennui, melancholy, sadness, resentment, malice, despair. [31] Distraction does not satisfy, much less fulfill, our great desire for life and happiness. We all know this very well..
It is at this point that Pascal sets forth his great argument. “What is it, then, that this longing and this feeling of helplessness cry out to us, if not that man once enjoyed a true happiness, of which now there remains only an empty trace, which he tries in vain to fill with everything that surrounds him, seeking in things that he lacks what he cannot obtain from those that he has.
But none of these can provide it, because this infinite abyss can only be bridged by an infinite and unchangeable object, which is God Himself”[32]
If man is like “a dispossessed king,”[33] who seeks only to regain his lost grandeur while knowing that he is incapable of doing so, what is he? “What a fantastic creature is man, a novelty, a monstrosity, chaotic, contradictory, astonishing, judge of all things, weak earthworm, bearer of truth, morass of uncertainty and error, glory and refuse of the universe! Who can untangle this tangle?” [34] As a philosopher, Pascal saw clearly that ” “the greater our intelligence, the more we discover the greatness of man and his baseness,” [35] and that these contradictions are irreconcilable.
Human reason can neither reconcile them nor solve the mystery.
Pascal goes on to argue that if there is a God, and if man has received a divine revelation-as a number of religions claim-and if this revelation is true, it must contain the answer we are waiting for to resolve the contradictions that cause us so much anguish. “The greatness and wretchedness of man are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us both that there is a great principle of greatness and a great principle of wretchedness in man. It must also explain these astonishing contradictions”. [36]
From his study of the great religions, Pascal concludes that, “no thought and no ascetic-mystical practice can offer a way of redemption”, unless by “the higher criterion of truth found in the illumination of grace”. [37]
“It is in vain,” Pascal writes, imagining what the true God might tell us, “that you seek in yourselves the remedy for your misery. All your intelligence has only brought you to the knowledge that you will find neither truth nor goodness in yourselves. The philosophers have promised you this, and they have not been able to deliver it. They know neither what your true good is, nor what your true state is.”. [38]
Having applied his extraordinary intelligence to the study of the human condition, Sacred Scriptures and the tradition of the Church, Pascal now presents himself with childlike simplicity as a humble witness of the Gospel.
As a Christian, he wants to speak of Jesus Christ to those who have prematurely concluded that there is no solid reason to believe in the truths of Christianity.
For his part, he knows from experience that the content of divine revelation not only does not contradict the demands of reason, but offers the astonishing answer that no philosophy alone could ever provide.
Conversion: the visit of the Lord
On 23 November 1654, Pascal had a powerful experience that is still referred to as his “night of fire”. This mystical experience, which caused him to weep tears of joy, was so intense and so decisive for him that he recorded it on a piece of paper, precisely dated, the “Memorial”, which he placed in the lining of his coat, only to be discovered after his death. Although it is impossible to know the exact nature of what took place in Pascal’s soul that night, it seems to have been an encounter that he himself recognized as analogous to the encounter, fundamental for the whole history of revelation and salvation, that Moses experienced in the presence of the burning bush (cf. Ex 3). The term “FIRE”, [39] which Pascal placed as the head of the “Memorial”, invites us, relatively speaking, to make this comparison. The parallel seems to be indicated by Pascal himself who, immediately after the evocation of fire, repeated the appellation that the Lord gave himself in the presence of Moses – “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” ( Ex 3:6.15) – and then added: “not of the philosophers and the wise men. Certainty. Certainty. Feeling. Joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ”.
Our God is indeed joy, and Blaise Pascal bears witness to this before the whole Church and before all those who seek God. “This is not the abstract God or the cosmic God, no. This is the God of a person, of a call, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who is certitude, who is sentiment, who is joy”. [40]
The encounter that night, which confirmed for Pascal the “grandeur of the human soul”, overwhelmed him with the same lively and fathomless joy: “Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy”.
And that divine joy became for him an occasion of confession and prayer: “Jesus Christ. I have separated myself from him. I have fled from him, I have denied him, I have crucified him. May I never be separated from him”. [41]
Pascal’s experience of the love of God, who, in Jesus Christ, participates personally in our history and continues to participate in our lives, led Pascal to a profound conversion, to a life of charity, and thus to a “complete and sweet renunciation”[42] of the “old self, corrupt and deceived by its desires” ( Eph 4:22).
As Saint John Paul II noted in his encyclical on the relationship between faith and reason, “philosophers like Pascal” are distinguished by their rejection of all presumption, and by their attitude of humility and courage.
They came to realize that “faith frees reason from presumption”. [43]
Certainly, before the night of 23 November 1654, Pascal “never doubted the existence of God. He also knew that God is the supreme good… What he lacked and longed for was not knowledge but power; not truth, but strength”. [44]
This strength was now given to him by grace, and he found himself drawn with certainty and joy to Jesus Christ: “We know God only through Jesus Christ.
Without this mediator, all communication with God is taken away”. [45]
To discover Jesus Christ is to discover the Savior and Liberator that I need: “This God is nothing other than the Redeemer of our misery.
Thus we can only truly know God by knowing our iniquities”. [46]
As with every authentic conversion, Blaise Pascal’s conversion took place in humility, which frees us “from our narrowness and self-absorption”. [47]
The great and restless intelligence of Blaise Pascal, overflowing with peace and joy at the revelation of Jesus Christ, invites us, according to the “order of the heart”, [48] to advance towards the brightness of “these heavenly lights”. [49]
For if our God is a “hidden God” (cf. Is 45:15), it is because he “chose to hide himself” [50] in such a way that our reason, enlightened by grace, will never cease to seekhim.
It is therefore through the enlightenment. Yet our human freedom must be open to this, and indeed Jesus comforts us with these words: “You would not seek me if you had not found me”. [51]
The order of the heart and its reasons for faith
In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “the Catholic tradition has from the beginning rejected what is called fideism, which is the desire to believe against reason”. [52]
Pascal is likewise deeply attached to the “reasonableness of faith in God”, [53] not only because “the mind cannot be forced to believe what it knows to be false”, [54] but also because “if we contradict the principles of reason, our religion would be absurd and ridiculous”. [55] Yet while faith is reasonable, it remains a gift of God and cannot be imposed. “We do not prove that we should be loved by giving reasons why we should be loved; that would be ridiculous” [56], Pascal tells us with his subtle humor, comparing human love and the way God beckons us. Like human love, “which proposes but never imposes, the love of God never imposes itself. [57] Jesus bore witness to the truth (cf. Jn 18:37), but he “refused to impose it by force on those who opposed it”. [58]
For this reason, “there is enough light for those who only want to see, and enough darkness for those who are otherwise inclined. [59]
Pascal goes on to say that “faith is different from proof.
One is human, while the other is a gift of God”. [60]
Therefore, it is impossible to believe “unless God inclines the heart”. [61]
Although faith is of a higher order than reason, it does not follow that faith is opposed to reason; on the contrary, faith infinitely surpasses reason.
When we read Pascal’s work, we do not first encounter reason clarifying faith, but (we encounter) a Christian of great logical rigor accounting for an order, graciously established by God, which transcends reason: “The infinite distance between bodies and minds represents the infinitely more infinite distance between minds and charity, for the latter is supernatural”. [62]
As a scientist expert in geometry, the science of bodies located in space, and a mathematician expert in philosophy, the science of minds located in history, Blaise Pascal, enlightened by the grace of faith, could sum up all his experience in these words: “Of all the bodies put together, one could not succeed in producing a tiny thought.
It is impossible and of a different order.
From all the bodies and minds, one could not draw an impulse of true charity.
This is impossible and of another, supernatural order.” [63]
Neither the operations of geometry nor philosophical reasoning alone allow us, arrive at a “very clear view” of the world or of ourselves.
Those who are involved in the details of their calculations do not benefit from the view of the whole that enables us to “see all the principles”.
This is the task of the “spirit of subtlety” which Pascal praises, because in order to grasp reality, “one must grasp things immediatelyin at a single glance”. [64]
This intuitive vision has to do with what Pascal calls the “heart”.
“We know the truth not only by reason but even more by the heart; it is by the latter that we come to know the first principles, and it is in vain that reason, which has no part in it, tries to refute them”. [65]
Divinely revealed truths – such as the fact that the God who created us is love, that he is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that he became incarnate in Jesus Christ, who died and rose for our salvation – are not demonstrable by reason.
They can only be known by the certitude of faith, and then pass immediately from the spiritual heart to the rational mind, which acknowledges their truth and can explicate them in turn. “This is why those to whom God has given religious faith by moving their hearts are blessed indeed and rightly convinced”. [66]
Pascal never grew resigned to the fact that some men and women not only do not know Jesus Christ, but, out of laziness or passion, refuse to take the Gospel seriously.
For in Jesus Christ their very lives are at stake. “The immortality of the soul is so important to us, something that touches us so deeply, that we must have lost all feeling in order to be indifferent to what is at stake… And for this reason, among those who are not convinced about it, I would like to make a clear distinction between those who make every effort to investigate it and those who go about their lives without worrying about it or thinking about it”. [67]
We know very well that often try to flee from death, or to overcome it, thinking that we can “banish the thought of our finite existence” or “take away its power and dispel its fear. But Christian faith is not a way of exorcising the fear of death; rather, it helps us to face death. Sooner or later, we will all pass through that door… The true light that illuminates the mystery of death comes from the resurrection of Christ”. [68]
Only God’s grace enables the human heart to know God and to live a life of charity. This led an important commentary on Pascal in our own day to write that “thought does not become Christian unless it attains to that which Jesus Christ brought about, which is charity”. [69]
Pascal, controversy and charity
Before concluding, I must mention Pascal’s relationship to Jansenism. One of his sisters, Jacqueline, had entered religious life in Port-Royal, in a religious congregation whose theology was greatly influenced by Cornelius Jansen, whose treatise Augustinus appeared in 1640. In January 1655, following his “night of fire”, Pascal made a retreat at the abbey of Port-Royal. In the months that followed, an important and lengthy dispute about the Augustinus arose between Jesuits and “Jansenists” at the Sorbonne, the university of Paris. The controversy dealt chiefly with the question of God’s grace and the relationship between grace and human nature, specifically our free will.
Pascal, while not a member of the congregation of Port-Royal, nor given to taking sides – as he wrote, “I am alone…. I am not at all part of Port-Royal” [70] – was charged by the Jansenists to defend them, given his outstanding rhetorical skill.
He did so in 1656 and 1657, publishing a series of eighteen writings known as The Provincial Letters.
Although several propositions considered “Jansenist” were indeed contrary to the faith, [71] a fact that Pascal himself acknowledged, he maintained that those propositions were not present in the Augustinus or held by those associated with Port-Royal. Even so, some of his own statements, such as those on predestination, drawn from the later theology of Augustine and formulated more severely by Jansen, do not ring true. We should realize, however, that, just as Saint Augustine sought in the fifth century to combat the Pelagians, who claimed that man can, by his own powers and without God’s grace, do good and be saved, so Pascal, for his part, sincerely believed that he was battling an implicit pelagianism or semipelagianism in the teachings of the “Molinist” Jesuits, named after the theologian Luis de Molina, who had died in 1600 but was still quite influential in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Let us credit Pascal with the candour and sincerity of his intentions.
(This Letter is no place to reopen the question).
Nevertheless, what Pascal rightly warned against remains a source of concern for our time: a “neo-pelagianism” [72] that would make everything depend “human effort channeled through ecclesiastical rules and structures” [73] and can be recognized by the fact that it “intoxicates us with the presumption of a salvation earned through our own efforts”. [74]
It should also be pointed out that Pascal’s final position on grace, and in particular the fact that God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” ( 1 Tim 2:4), was expressed in perfectly Catholic terms at the end of his life. [75]
As I noted earlier, Blaise Pascal, at the end of a life that was a short but extraordinarily rich and fruitful life, placed love for his brothers and sisters above all else.
He felt and knew that he was a member of a body, for “God, who created the heavens and the earth which are not conscious of the happiness of their existence, wished to create beings who would know that happiness and constitute a body of thinking members”. [76]
As a lay Christian Pascal savored the joy of the Gospel, with which the Spirit wants to heal and make fruitful “every aspect of humanity” and to bring “all men and women together at table in the Kingdom of God”. [77]
When, in 1659, he composed his magnificent Prayer to Ask of God the Proper Use of Sickness, Pascal was a man at peace, no longer engaged in controversy or even apologetics. Seriously ill and on the verge of dying, he asked to receive Holy Communion, but this was not immediately possible. So he asked his sister, “since I cannot communicate in the head [Jesus Christ], I would like to communicate in the members”. [78]
He “greatly desired to die in the company of the poor”. [79]
It was said of Pascal, shortly after he took his last breath on 19 August 1662, that “he died with the simplicity of a child”. [80]
After receiving the sacraments, his last words were: “May God never foresake me”. [81]
May the brilliant work of Blaise Pascal and the example of his life, so deeply immersed in Jesus Christ, help us to persevere to the end on the path of truth, conversion and charity. For this life passes away in a moment: “Eternal joy in return for a single day’s effort on earth”. [82]
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 19 June 2023
