Pascal on the Good Use of Illness
The Catholic Thing
By Casey Chalk The man was at the top of his game. His professional career was at full throttle, moving from one success to another. Yet he was also admired for his love and sacrifices for his family. Though many disagreed with his religious convictions, no one questioned his virtue or sincerity. Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. Then, without warning, a debilitating illness struck. His wealth and prestige assured him quality medical care, but availed the man little. His condition kept deteriorating. In short order, the man expired. Perhaps you've known such a person. I've known some, and their stories are undoubtedly tragedies, especially when spouse and children are left to grieve a dramatic, unexpected departure. You can't help but wonder if you might become that person, despite relative youth or good health. "That won't happen to me," we say. But many people whom we thought it could never happen to . . . well, it happened to them. The great seventeenth-century French polymath Blaise Pascal could very well have wrestled with such thoughts. He made impressive contributions to math, science, and philosophy before his thirtieth birthday – including creating a calculator that has been called the first "computer." The horse-drawn carriage system that he developed for the city of Paris earned him recognition as the father of public transportation. Yet as he was making these incredible contributions, Pascal was suffering a painful, progressively debilitating illness, with intense migraines, hypersensitivity to light and sound, severe abdominal pains, dental abscesses, and eventually partial paralysis. After four years of this torment, he died in 1662. During that period Pascal wrote "Prayer Asking God for the Good Use of Illness," a striking and spiritually penetrating Catholic reflection on human suffering. Pascal's Prayers, a new book by philosophy professor William C. Hackett, features both the prayer and illuminating commentary, as well as offering a valuable counterweight to the health and longevity obsessions of modern America. One of the most arresting qualities of Pascal's Prayers is how the French savant comprehends suffering as an extension of God's gracious providence: "Not only the blessings but even the misfortunes that befall your chosen ones are effects of your boundless compassion. . . You are no less God whether you afflict and discipline or console and show mercy." Even if we recognize God's hand in our suffering, we moderns – votaries of a catechesis of comfort – want the suffering to end, to get back to the way things were. Pascal pushes us even further. He perceives his sickness as a form of divine discipline to help him to detach himself from worldly things: "Render me incapable of enjoying this world either by weakness of the body or by the zeal of charity so that I may find my joy in you alone. For you have made me unable to enjoy the comforts of health and the pleasures of the world; you have already annihilated for my benefit the deceptive idols." It leads one to wonder: if God so obviously blesses us with material goods – natural beauty, delicious food and drink, beautiful art – does it make sense that He asks us to be detached from them for His sake? Part of the answer seems to be that, though creatures are indeed designed for our happiness, they are also intended to generate gratitude and worship: "Yes, Lord, I confess that I esteemed health as a good. Not because it is an easy means to serve you with utility, to dedicate more care and vigilance to your service, and to help others, but because through it, I could abandon myself with less restraint to the abundance of life's pleasures and better savor its destructive joys." Pascal realizes that his appreciation of good things often obscured God. But there's even more. Lesser, contingent goods present us with an opportunity to see them properly in relationship to God, the infinite, eternal good. "Take away from me, Lord, the sadness that ...