Tea at Trianon: Reparation

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

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Reparation

The following was written a hundred years ago:

It may be said that never was the life of reparation more wanted than it is in our days, for never was God so publicly outraged, so fearlessly blasphemed.

Never has the ruin of souls been so complete, for the faith of people is sapped to its foundations. Never has scandal been so widespread, for it has become national, nor so disastrous, for it attacks even childhood, our last hope. Now, more than ever, then, has Our Lord need of souls who seriously and generously make reparation, and aid Him in atoning for these outrages against God, in saving souls from ruin, and repairing these awful scandals.

Who will respond to the urgent need of the Heart of Jesus and of His Church? Without doubt all souls of goodwill who love God and their neighbor, but particularly all eucharistic souls. The life of reparation is their especial portion, for they live always with Jesus in the Tabernacle, and He is the first object, the model, and the means of reparations.

~ Love, Peace and Joy by the Reverend André Prévot