Pascal's Pensées
stultitiam prædicationis salvos facere._[201]
547
Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves
only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ.
Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death,
nor God, nor ourselves.
Thus without the Scripture, which has Jesus Christ alone for its object,
we know nothing, and see only darkness and confusion in the nature of
God, and in our own nature.
548
It is not only impossible but useless to know God without Jesus Christ.
They have not departed from Him, but approached; they have not humbled
themselves, but ...
_Quo quisque optimus est, pessimus, si hoc ipsum, quod optimus est,
adscribat sibi._
549
I love poverty because He loved it. I love riches because they afford me
the means of helping the very poor. I keep faith with everybody; I do
not render evil to those who wrong me, but I wish them a lot like mine,
in which I receive neither evil nor good from men. I try to be just,
true, sincere, and faithful to all men; I have a tender heart for those
to whom God has more closely united me; and whether I am alone, or seen
of men, I do all my actions in the sight of God, who must judge of them,
and to whom I have consecrated them all.
These are my sentiments; and every day of my life I bless my Redeemer,
who has implanted them in me, and who, of a man full of weakness, of
miseries, of lust, of pride, and of ambition, has made a man free from
all these evils by the power of His grace, to which all the glory of it
is due, as of myself I have only misery and error.
550
_Dignior plagis quam osculis non timeo quia amo._
551
_The Sepulchre of Jesus Christ._--Jesus Christ was dead, but seen on the
Cross. He was dead, and hidden in the Sepulchre.
Jesus Christ was buried by the saints alone.
Jesus Christ wrought no miracle at the Sepulchre.
Only the saints entered it.
It is there, not on the Cross, that Jesus Christ takes a new life.
It is the last mystery of the Passion and the Redemption.
Jesus Christ had nowhere to rest on earth but in the Sepulchre.
His enemies only ceased to persecute Him at the Sepulchre.
552
_The Mystery of Jesus._--Jesus suffers in His passions the torments
which men inflict upon Him; but in His agony He suffers the torments
which He inflicts on Himself; _turbare semetipsum_.[202] This is a
suffering from no human, but an almighty hand, for He must be almighty
to bear it.
Jesus seeks some comfort at least in His three dearest friends, and they
are asleep. He prays them to bear with Him for a little, and they leave
Him with entire indifference, having so little compassion that it could
not prevent their sleeping even for a moment. And thus Jesus was left
alone to the wrath of God.
Jesus is alone on the earth, without any one not only to feel and share
His suffering, but even to know of it; He and Heaven were alone in that
knowledge.
Jesus is in a garden, not of delight as the first Adam, where he lost
himself and the whole human race, but in one of agony, where He saved
Himself and the whole human race.
He suffers this affliction and this desertion in the horror of night.
I believe that Jesus never complained but on this single occasion; but
then He complained as if he could no longer bear His extreme suffering.
"My soul is sorrowful, even unto death."[203]
Jesus seeks companionship and comfort from men. This is the sole
occasion in all His life, as it seems to me. But He receives it not, for
His disciples are asleep.
Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep
during that time.
Jesus, in the midst of this universal desertion, including that of His
own friends chosen to watch with Him, finding them asleep, is vexed
because of the danger to which they expose, not Him, but themselves; He
cautions them for their own safety and their own good, with a sincere
tenderness for them during their ingratitude, and warns them that the
spirit is willing and the flesh weak.
Jesus, finding them still asleep, without being restrained by any
consideration for themselves or for Him, has the kindness not to waken
them, and leaves them in repose.
Jesus prays, uncertain of the will of His Father, and fears death; but,
when He knows it, He goes forward to offer Himself to death. _Eamus.
Processit_[204] (John).
Jesus asked of men and was not heard.
Jesus, while His disciples slept, wrought their salvation. He has
wrought that of each of the righteous while they slept, both in their
nothingness before their birth, and in their sins after their birth.
He prays only once that the cup pass away, and then with submission; and
twice that it come if necessary.
Jesus is weary.
Jesus, seeing all His friends asleep and all His enemies wakeful,
commits Himself entirely to His Father.
Jesus does not regard in Judas his enmity, but the order of God, which
He loves and admits, since He calls him friend.
Jesus tears Himself away from His disciples to enter into His agony; we
must tear ourselves away from our nearest and dearest to imitate Him.
Jesus being in agony and in the greatest affliction, let us pray longer.
We implore the mercy of God, not that He may leave us at peace in our
vices, but that He may deliver us from them.
If God gave us masters by His own hand, oh! how necessary for us to obey
them with a good heart! Necessity and events follow infallibly.
--"Console thyself, thou wouldst not seek Me, if thou hadst not found
Me.
"I thought of thee in Mine agony, I have sweated such drops of blood for
thee.
"It is tempting Me rather than proving thyself, to think if thou wouldst
do such and such a thing on an occasion which has not happened; I shall
act in thee if it occur.
"Let thyself be guided by My rules; see how well I have led the Virgin
and the saints who have let Me act in them.
"The Father loves all that I do.
"Dost thou wish that it always cost Me the blood of My humanity, without
thy shedding tears?
"Thy conversion is My affair; fear not, and pray with confidence as for
Me.
"I am present with thee by My Word in Scripture, by My Spirit in the
Church and by inspiration, by My power in the priests, by My prayer in
the faithful.
"Physicians will not heal thee, for thou wilt die at last. But it is I
who heal thee, and make the body immortal.
"Suffer bodily chains and servitude, I deliver thee at present only from
spiritual servitude.
"I am more a friend to thee than such and such an one, for I have done
for thee more than they, they would not have suffered what I have
suffered from thee, and they would not have died for thee as I have done
in the time of thine infidelities and cruelties, and as I am ready to
do, and do, among my elect and at the Holy Sacrament."
"If thou knewest thy sins, thou wouldst lose heart."
--I shall lose it then, Lord, for on Thy assurance I believe their
malice.
--"No, for I, by whom thou learnest, can heal thee of them, and what I
say to thee is a sign that I will heal thee. In proportion to thy
expiation of them, thou wilt know them, and it will be said to thee:
'Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee.' Repent, then, for thy hidden sins,
and for the secret malice of those which thou knowest."
--Lord, I give Thee all.
--"I love thee more ardently than thou hast loved thine abominations,
_ut immundus pro luto_.
"To Me be the glory, not to thee, worm of the earth.
"Ask thy confessor, when My own words are to thee occasion of evil,
vanity, or curiosity."
--I see in me depths of pride, curiosity, and lust. There is no relation
between me and God, nor Jesus Christ the Righteous. But He has been made
sin for me; all Thy scourges are fallen upon Him. He is more abominable
than I, and, far from abhorring me, He holds Himself honoured that I go
to Him and succour Him.
But He has healed Himself, and still more so will He heal me.
I must add my wounds to His, and join myself to Him; and He will save me
in saving Himself. But this must not be postponed to the future.
_Eritis sicut dii scientes bonum et malum._[205] Each one creates his
god, when judging, "This is good or bad"; and men mourn or rejoice too
much at events.
Do little things as though they were great, because of the majesty of
Jesus Christ who does them in us, and who lives our life; and do the
greatest things as though they were little and easy, because of His
omnipotence.
553
It seems to me that Jesus Christ only allowed His wounds to be touched
after His resurrection: _Noli me tangere._[206] We must unite ourselves
only to His sufferings.
At the Last Supper He gave Himself in communion as about to die; to the
disciples at Emmaus as risen from the dead; to the whole Church as
ascended into heaven.
554
"Compare not thyself with others, but with Me. If thou dost not find Me
in those with whom thou comparest thyself, thou comparest thyself to one
who is abominable. If thou findest Me in them, compare thyself to Me.
But whom wilt thou compare? Thyself, or Me in thee? If it is thyself, it
is one who is abominable. If it is I, thou comparest Me to Myself. Now I
am God in all.
"I speak to thee, and often counsel thee, because thy director cannot
speak to thee, for I do not want thee to lack a guide.
"And perhaps I do so at his prayers, and thus he leads thee without thy
seeing it. Thou wouldst not seek Me, if thou didst not possess Me.
"Be not therefore troubled."
SECTION VIII
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
555
... Men blaspheme what they do not know. The Christian religion consists
in two points. It is of equal concern to men to know them, and it is
equally dangerous to be ignorant to them. And it is equally of God's
mercy that He has given indications of both.
And yet they take occasion to conclude that one of these points does not
exist, from that which should have caused them to infer the other. The
sages who have said there is only one God have been persecuted, the Jews
were hated, and still more the Christians. They have seen by the light
of nature that if there be a true religion on earth, the course of all
things must tend to it as to a centre.
The whole course of things must have for its object the establishment
and the greatness of religion. Men must have within them feelings suited
to what religion teaches us. And, finally, religion must so be the
object and centre to which all things tend, that whoever knows the
principles of religion can give an explanation both of the whole nature
of man in particular, and of the whole course of the world in general.
And on this ground they take occasion to revile the Christian religion,
because they misunderstand it. They imagine that it consists simply in
the worship of a God considered as great, powerful, and eternal; which
is strictly deism, almost as far removed from the Christian religion as
atheism, which is its exact opposite. And thence they conclude that this
religion is not true, because they do not see that all things concur to
the establishment of this point, that God does not manifest Himself to
men with all the evidence which He could show.
But let them conclude what they will against deism, they will conclude
nothing against the Christian religion, which properly consists in the
mystery of the Redeemer, who, uniting in Himself the two natures, human
and divine, has redeemed men from the corruption of sin in order to
reconcile them in His divine person to God.
The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there
is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their
nature which renders them unworthy of Him. It is equally important to