Tea at Trianon: Sacred Images

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, March 9, 2009

Sacred Images

Arturo Vasquez discusses the mystery and meaning of the ancient tradition.

Here then we see a more foundational and human approach to religious imagery in the Catholic Church, one that takes the sacramental principle a step further. Catholicism in the end is a religion of the concrete: a religion filled with ceremony, trinkets, and daily things used for extraordinary purposes. Bread and wine, rosaries, cloth, incense, and old, worn pages come together to create a religion that you can touch, taste, and smell. At times, these things can compel us to be better than what we are now; they often lead us to repentance and to a life committed to a God who is above all human sense and thought. It can appear to be magic to the casual observer, but the real magic here is not in the plaster or the paint, but rather in faith....