Tea at Trianon: The Churching of Women

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

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The Churching of Women

A beautiful and ancient tradition that is slowly being revived. Share

2 comments:

Unknown said...: It is a beautiful ritual. I suspect that it fell out of use because few women nowadays die in childbirth. The older liturgies would need to be updated to be appropriate with modern medicine. Childbirth was considered more dangerous than warfare in the days of midwifes with little knowledge of sanitation and without antibiotics.

In my mid-19th century Anglican Book of Common Prayer, the liturgy for the Churching of Women follows the liturgies for the Visitation of the Sick and the Burial of the Dead -- not the liturgy of Baptism for Infants. The introductory prayer is: "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his goodness to give you safe deliverance, and hath preserved you in the great danger of Child-birth; you shall therefore give hearty thanks unto God . . ." The closing prayer likewise begins: "O Almighty God, we give you humble thanks for that thou hast vouchsafed to deliver this woman thy servant from the great pain and peril of Child-birth . . ."; November 8, 2009 at 11:22:00 AM EST
tubbs said...: I remember my Mom going thru that rite after my siblings were born back in the fifties. I once asked a Jesuit why the ritual was no longer practised, and he felt that political correctness was the reason.

And Teresa, I've always been amazed that a Protestant church (pre-Oxford Movement) would recognize such an important milestone in life---and preserve it!; November 9, 2009 at 10:08:00 PM EST