Tea at Trianon: This is the 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, July 7, 2007

This is the day...

...which the Lord has made. It is here, the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum. Signed, sealed and delivered. Rorate Caeli also has the immediate reaction as well as the Pope's letter to the bishops. Rome has spoken. The matter is closed.

Nothing is going to change over night, dear friends. It took years for the liturgical chaos to unfold; it will take years to rebuild. But now there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The problem now will be impatience and frustration on the part of those who love the traditional Mass, since things will happen slowly. There will be much opposition to contend with, I am sure. But maybe our children will be able to assist at more reverent Masses, Masses that many of us have been deprived of for much of our lives. Share