Tea at Trianon: The Marks of a Vocation

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, July 30, 2007

The Marks of a Vocation

Here is an excellent article on the formation for the priesthood by Michael S. Rose. Prayer is everything. To quote:

Without prayer, the ordained priest cannot even hope to partake properly in the source and summit of the Catholic priesthood, the Holy Mass. "It's the most important part of the day. Every intention I have for each day goes into that Mass. If you're going to represent the Lord in persona Christi, you've got to be able to talk to Him, and you have to want to talk to Him. For the priest, preaching, teaching, and sanctifying is rooted in the Catholic Mass." Prayer is the absolute bare minimum prerequisite.

And more from the New Oxford Review:

~The Pope laments the chaos that followed the Second Vatican Council.

~Paul Weyrich predicts that Hilary will win. I pray he is wrong.

~Are too many people on psychiatric drugs?
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