News Gospel is often called Good News. Why is it Good News? The Night of Fire Blaise Pascal once said, “The heart has its reasons that reason does not know”. This great French scientist and mathematician was struggling with the increasing restlessness of his soul which he compared with the serenity of his sister Jacqueline who lived in convent. For him, his rational reason as a scientist had made him difficult to reconcile with what his heart was telling him until he finally met with Christ, the event he called “the night of fire”. He wrote:   "The year of grace 1654. Monday, 23 November, feast of Saint Clement. . . From about half-past ten in the evening until about half-past midnight. Fire. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Not of the philosophers and intellectuals. Certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace. The God of Jesus Christ. My God and your God. Forgetfulness of the world and everything except God. One finds oneself only by way of the directions taught in the gospel. The grandeur of the human soul. Oh just Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy…."              You may wonder what this is all about from the brilliant scientist like Pascal. After all, long years of treading through a life could make people to develop apathy. We may become painfully aware of the life’s struggle we are experiencing. It's like Iris Murdoch’s description on Kant’s rational man,             “--- he is the offspring of the age of science, confidently rational and yet increasingly aware of his  alienation from the material universe which his discoveries reveal ---“            Pascal knew it more than 350 years ago. He was great in understanding how spiritual matters work. He theorized it by instituting a game theory called “Wager”. To some, the greatest contribution he made to the humanity is that he tried to remember his thoughts by writing down on a paper and then an edited copy on a parchment. We would never have known his other writings, that later became familiar to us as Pensées (Thoughts), had it not been an observant servant who spotted them in addition to the writing of his conversion sewn into his coat after his death in 1662 at the age of 39.            Do you have a reason in your heart that the reason does not know? For more information please contact Takashi Yoshioka (takashi@jhu.edu).