Tea at Trianon: In the Garden with Christ

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, April 21, 2011

In the Garden with Christ

My soul is sorrowful even unto death. To quote:

Luke writes, “He was in such agony and prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood.”
Christ so agonized over each and every one of us. He pleaded before the Father on our behalf as wave after wave of the horrors we would carry out upon each other besot Him. Nothing other than love must have driven Him to undertake such a journey with courage and conviction.
Love too, is what motivated me as I walked in the desert alone sobbing, and pleading with every ounce of my being for the one I loved. Tormented, I could not be consoled and would have willingly taken on whatever physical pain was necessary to manifest the mental anguish I felt. My very soul ached with such sorrow and confusion. “Why?” I asked, over and over again. It was at that very moment that I felt a clarity and profound union with Christ’s own suffering. I knew for the first time in my life, in a real and personal way, a mere fraction of what Jesus must have felt as He pleaded to His heavenly Father for us. Did He too welcome physical pain, willing to take our salvation to whatever level was necessary to save our very souls? Was there consolation with every piercing sting of the whip that brought Him ever closer to the realization of His ultimate purpose and the reward that awaited us?
Love is what will move the mountains, make straight the paths, and repair the damage of our sin. “Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.” Love will compel us to pray for one another, to plead for one another, and to find our way out of the garden into the new light. It finds the lost, lights the darkness and heals the hurts. (Read more.)