Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a brilliant French philosopher and mathematician who offered a suggestion to those who struggled with faith. Since reason cannot be trusted and faith cannot be proven, there is a choice: to believe or not to believe. Weighing the cost of being wrong in either choice, he argued that it is far safer to believe (and enter oblivion after death) than to reject God (and risk eternal damnation). Furthermore, living as though one believed is a gesture that cannot go unnoticed by God, who will surely provide the grace of sincerity in due time.
This concept came to mind as I considered how difficult it is to teach our children to prioritize virtue and the sacramental life. It has ever been thus, as the familiar story of Saint Monica reminds us, but today's saint inspired me to twist Pascal’s “wager” into a slightly different form.
In reading about today's saint, Basil (330-379), I learned that his mother raised three children honored by the Church: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa and their sister, Saint Macrina; two other brothers were bishops. His grandfather was martyred for the faith, and both parents were known for their piety. Nevertheless, Basil writes of his early life:
Much time had I spent in vanity, and had wasted nearly all my youth acquiring the sort of wisdom made foolish by God. Then once, like a man roused from deep sleep, I turned my eyes to the marvelous light of the truth of the Gospel, and I perceived the uselessness of ‘the wisdom of the princes of this world, that come to naught.’ I wept many tears over my miserable life, and I prayed that I might receive guidance to admit me to the doctrines of true religion.
Think for a moment of how rich their family life must have been, and how many times young Basil had heard accounts of persecution and courage. Surely he was offered excellent moral formation and enthusiastic catechesis—and yet he still proved vain and foolish for a time.
This brings me to my variation on Pascal, which may help parents find peace in this new year. Either God exists or he doesn’t. If he does—as witnessed by the resurrection of Our Lord—then he loves your children dearly, is intimately familiar with their inner journey, and passionately wants them to be with him for eternity. Moreover, our omniscient and omnipotent God offers abundant graces specifically to make this happen—but do we really believe that? Do we pray as if we believe that?
Conversely, if God doesn’t exist, then all that we’ve been trying to teach our children is virtually useless (other than the earthly benefits that some moral guidelines provide).
Basil said that his eyes were opened one day when read the Gospel—but surely he had beeen familiar with the Gospel message since infancy. What must have transpired upon that particular reading of Scriptures was that “in the fullness of time,” he embraced the graces won by Christ (and for which his extended family, living and dead, must have begged).
When considering many conversion stories, one is baffled by what exactly supplies the critical piece for a soul—the “aha moment!” as it were. For some it may be a passage in a book, for others it’s a seemingly inconsequential passing comment, for others it may be a particularly scenic view. Rather than seeking “a silver bullet” (as so many parents do, accompanied by handwringing, tears and anxiety—revealing our lack of faith) perhaps we should embark on a year of trust, for the graces are there. Without a doubt, peaceful parents who pray and sacrifice with confidence are placing the surest bet of all. In the words of Padre Pio, “Pray, hope and don’t worry.”
Sts. Joachim and Anne, A Family Prayer
Lord Jesus, through the intercession of Your Blessed
Mother Mary and Good St. Joseph we ask You to bless,
protect and guide our family. Humbly we approach Your
Eucharistic throne of grace and pray that You mold us into a
Holy Family. By the power of the Holy Spirit please help us
to do the will of Our Heavenly Father, during our earthly
sojourn, for Your honor and glory and the salvation of souls.
Help us to lead others to You in the Most Blessed
Sacrament. At the end of our journey please gather us
together, again, that we may be a family in Your heavenly
paradise and with the angels and saints sing Your praises
for eternity.
(From the book Family Hours of Adoration)

Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.