{"id":3785,"date":"2024-07-02T08:42:46","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T12:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3785"},"modified":"2024-07-02T08:43:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T12:43:31","slug":"night-of-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/02\/night-of-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Night of Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>

There are child prodigies. And then there was Blaise Pascal.

Born in 1623 in Rouen, France, Pascal was the son of a tax collector. By the time he turned 16, he had written a treatise on projective geometry that is still relevant after four centuries. He followed that up with work in probability theory, and is commonly cited as one of the earliest inventors of mechanical calculators.

If there ever was a kid destined to win the school science fair every year, it was Blaise Pascal.

Before he turned 30, he was making significant contributions in the fields of mathematics, physics, philosophy, literature, and invention.

Then there was the question of God. Pascal had the wits and the resources to undertake a full-on intellectual search for the meaning of life. But he consistently came up empty.

It was as if each philosopher drew a circle and said, \u201cThis is the nature of reality.\u201d Then the next philosopher would come along, erase the previous circle, and draw one of his own. \u201cThis is what truth looks like.\u201d Pascal was singularly unimpressed.

Then suddenly, unexpectedly, his heart seemed to warm. He became an ardent follower of Jesus. No one \u2013 not even those among his family and friends \u2013 knew precisely what had happened.

When Pascal died at the young age of 39, a chance discovery helped resolve the mystery.

A housekeeper who was handling his old coat found that a piece of paper had been sewn into its lining. It was in Pascal\u2019s handwriting. He had never shown it to anyone.

It reads like an entry into a diary \u2013 a private note about an astonishing personal experience:

The year of grace 1654<\/em>
Monday, November 23\u2026
From about ten-thirty in the evening to about half an hour after midnight.
FIRE.
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and savants.
Certitude, certitude; feeling, joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ\u2026
\u201cThy God shall be my God.\u201d
Forgetting the world and everything, except God.
He is only found by the paths taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
\u201cJust Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.\u201d
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I separated myself from him\u2026
\u201cMy God, will you abandon me?\u201d
May I not be eternally separated from him.
\u201cThis is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.\u201d
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I separated myself from him; I fled him, renounced him, crucified him.
May I never be separated from him!
He is only kept by the paths taught in the Gospel.
Total and sweet renunciation.
Total submission to Jesus Christ\u2026
Eternally in joy for a day of trial on earth.<\/em>
Amen.<\/em>

What happened to Blaise Pascal that night?

One historian suggests that this \u201cmay be the best imprint of a mystical experience ever recorded in words.\u201d

All we know is that those two hours seemed to redirect the wonder child\u2019s heart and mind.

He wasn\u2019t touched by a mathematical theorem, philosophical paradigm, or scientific treatise.

We read in Luke 3:16, \u201cJohn [the Baptist] answered them all, \u2018I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.\u2019\u201d

The dry twigs of Blaise Pascal\u2019s heart were seemingly set ablaze by a baptism of fire.

Perhaps you\u2019ve been on a spiritual search of your own. You\u2019ve been hunting for an answer to a nagging question or the resolution to a vexing issue, and no one seems able to help. Perhaps what you\u2019re looking for will be in the next book, or the next sermon, or the next conversation.

But what you\u2019re looking for, of course, is God.

And maybe he\u2019s the One you\u2019ll find on the other side of a prayer that goes something like this:

\u201cLord, kindle my heart with the fire of your love.\u201d<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here There are child prodigies. And then there was Blaise Pascal. Born in 1623 in Rouen, France, Pascal was the son of a tax collector. By the time he turned 16, he had written a treatise on projective geometry that is still relevant after four centuries. He followed that up with work… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[759,760],"class_list":["post-3785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fire","tag-skepticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3788,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions\/3788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}