Tea at Trianon: A Beautiful Confirmation Day

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

Saturday, May 12, 2007

A Beautiful Confirmation Day

I went to a Confirmation Mass this morning and had the honor of being a sponsor. The mass was held at the lovely Church of Corpus Christi in Chambersburg, PA, with His Excellency Bishop Timlin, the Bishop Emeritus of Scranton presiding. The lay catechists who rehearsed us were very insistent upon reverence in the house of God and the “Vatican dress code.” I was impressed since I had never before heard such firmness from anyone but nuns. The youngsters were confirmed kneeling before the bishop, which I had not seen since my own confirmation 30+ years ago. Bishop Timlin gave a powerful homily, delightful for subtle humor but edifying in his direct catechesis on the Sacrament of Confirmation. To see the youthful faces glowing with the joy of the sacred moment lifted my heart to God. In spite of everything, the Church goes on….. Share