Grandeur and misery
Today’s readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 95: 1-9; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Matthew 4:16; Mark 1: 21-28
In his Letter on the possibility of the commandments, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) approaches the issue on the premise that “St Augustine and the Fathers who followed him never spoke of commandments without saying that these are not impossible to charity, and that they are established only to help us feel the need of charity which alone can accomplish them”. While engaging philosophically and theologically with the question, citing Scripture and Church tradition, Pascal expands his reflective argumentation in a Discourse on the possibility of the commandments, showing that “the commandments are not impossible to the just”.
Pope Francis’s apostolic letter Sublimitas et miseria hominis, commemorating last year the fourth centenary of Pascal’s birth, points out that the French philosopher, mathematician, physicist and inventor was fascinated by the existential question on what constitutes human nature, and regarding the place of humanity in nature. Pascal’s conclusion is
“nothing with respect to the infinite, yet everything with respect to nothing”.
The same existential question arises today in the context of a catastrophic ecological crisis, the rise of AI technology, with all the potential risks it involves, and of all forms of crimes and abuses – including structural and political ones – against human nature and the dignity of the human person.
Laurence Plazenet and Pierre Lyraud contend, in the 400th anniversary edition of Pascal’s Oeuvre, that “it is necessary to read Pascal. Pascal is necessary. Like water. Like bread... because reading him constitutes a challenge” to start reflecting afresh on the human problem.
In the midst of an epochal change, we desperately need a renewed anthropology. Pascal’s conversion to Christ and his commitment to show the reasonableness of faith did not dull his outstanding scientific mind or obstruct his technical and scientific inventions. On the contrary, he was thrust more deeply into the aspirations, troubles and concerns of his age, seeking to better understand and respond to them through light coming from the human sciences.
Today’s Gospel narrative portrays the grandeur and the misery of human nature. On the Sabbath, the day of rest and of freedom from oppression, serfdom, and slavery, Jesus is confronted by a man degraded by an “unclean spirit”, to whom the Lord commands to “come out of him”. The narrative points to a restored dignity of the human person and the victory over that which demeans it.
Read in the context of the first reading from Deuteronomy, Jesus is presented in today’s liturgy as the “prophet” promised by Moses the lawgiver. Fearing death, the people refused to directly “hear again the voice of the Lord”. Thus, a prophet was to arise on God’s command to verbalise divine words. Jesus Christ is the humane Word of God among us, a healing presence extending to us divine charity, rising us up from misery. Jesus’s humane countenance assures us that God’s Word – or commandments – are born out of charity to form us in charity, preserving us from all that threatens to destroy in us the divine image and likeness, namely our fundamental and sublime existential goodness.
To use Pope Francis’s terminology, in an age of ripe human “imperialist” exploitation of all sorts on a larger scale, reaching high levels in many spheres of life, humanity needs a paradigmatic shift potentially saving humanity from itself. In denying we are “in need of charity” and “that charity alone can accomplish” in us that which is just and right in the quest for human progress and fulfilment, humanity is ultimately doomed to fail itself and the purpose of its place and role in the world.
To acknowledge the need of charity, is to acknowledge the need of the other. It is, in Pascal’s words, to “commune in the poor” and to move away from the toxic self-referential presumption of self-sufficiency which perhaps is indeed “a source of concern for our own age”.
CHARLO.CAMILLERI@UM.EDU.MT
troops, as well as to prevent the escape of the French ships now in that place”.
Captain Ball’s ship wintered at anchor off the coast of Malta, out of reach of the guns. During the greater part of the blockade, Ball lived on shore.
The French troops, under General Claude Henri Belgrand de Vaubois, pressed by dearth of provisions and unable to withstand the siege any longer, surrendered on September 4, 1800. The blockade had ended.
After the French surrender, gold medals, together with a citation or attestation, were awarded to the Maltese representatives in recognition of their service in the defence of the island. The attestations were signed by Ball and Cutajar, “secretary to his excellency”.