Tea at Trianon: The Lamentable Music at Mass

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

Monday, June 25, 2007

The Lamentable Music at Mass

Coffee Wife laments the loss of the sacred at Mass, especially the groovy music, in her own inimitable way. I could never fathom why, when the most beautiful music on earth was written for the liturgy of our church, we Catholics have to go to a concert to hear it, instead of hearing it at Mass. But all this has been going on for so long, it does not torment me as it did when I was younger. Now I tune everything out and beg God to save my soul and the souls of my family. Gregorian chant or Mozart at a Latin Mass would be a big help to my devotion, though. A big help. Share

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: I thoroughly agree. It is part of the dumbing down or protestantization of the Mass. I have a good friend who is a Lutheran and many years ago when this started happening in the RC Church she said, "Who would think that the day would come when one could experience more awe in the beauty of the Sacrament in an Episcopal Church than in a Catholic Church."; June 25, 2007 at 10:21:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Yes, it has been like living through another Reformation.; June 25, 2007 at 10:23:00 PM EDT