Tea at Trianon: The Sorrowful Mother

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, March 30, 2007

The Sorrowful Mother

Father Mark Kirby has a sublime post in honor of Our Lady of Sorrows. Here is a translation of the Stabat Mater from his blog:

By the cross, on which suspended,
With his bleeding hands extended,
Hung that Son she so adored,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
She whose heart, its silence keeping,
Grief had cleft as with a sword.

Oh, that Mother’s sad affliction—
Mother of all benediction—
Of the sole–begotten One;
Oh, the grieving, sense–bereaving,
Of her heaving breast, perceiving
The dread sufferings of her Son.

What man is there so unfeeling,
Who, his heart to pity steeling,
Could behold that sight unmoved?
Could Christ’s Mother see there weeping,
See the pious Mother keeping
Vigil by the Son she loved?

For his people’s sins atoning,
She saw Jesus writhing, groaning,
‘Neath the scourge wherewith he bled;
Saw her loved one, her consoler,
Dying in his dreadful dolour,
Till at length his spirit fled.

O thou Mother of election,
Fountain of all pure affection,
Make thy grief, thy pain, my own;
Make my heart to God returning,
In the love of Jesus burning,
Feel the fire that thine has known.

Blessed Mother of prediction,
Stamp the marks of crucifixion
Deeply on my stony heart,
Ever leading where thy bleeding
Son is pleading for my needing,
Let me in his wounds take part.

Make me truly, each day newly
While life lasts, O Mother, duly
Weep with him, the Crucified.
Let me, ‘tis my sole demanding,
Near the cross, where thou art standing,
Stand in sorrow at thy side.

Queen of virgins, best and dearest,
Grant, oh, grant the prayer thou hearest.
Let me ever mourn with me;
Let compassion me so fashion
That Christ’s wounds, his death and passion,
Be each day renewed in me.

Oh, those wounds, do not deny me;
On that cross, oh, crucify me;
Let me drink his blood, I pray:
Then on fire, enkindled, daring,
I may stand without despairing
On that dreadful judgment–day.

May that cross be my salvation;
Make Christ’s death my preservation;
May his grace my heart make wise;
And when death my body taketh,
May my soul when it awaketh

Terry at Abbey Roads has a beautiful meditation on the meeting of Jesus with His mother.
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