Tea at Trianon: The Mother of God in the Ukraine

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, June 4, 2012

The Mother of God in the Ukraine

She destroyed the Soviet Empire: To quote an archbishop:

Communism destroyed our society and one of the wounds in our flesh was the destruction of human dignity. It is quite often difficult to build a real democracy in these states because people are afraid to reveal themselves as a person, and to be free, not only internal but externally from the shackles - the vestiges of repression of their former societies [under Soviet rule]; to be free to take responsibility not only for one’s destiny, one’s own life and perhaps one’s country. I think that only through the grace of the Holy Spirit can the Church can heal these wounds. The grace of the Holy Spirit is a spirit of freedom and those Christians, who were in prison, can be free. We have the political freedom but we lack an internal personal freedom, a freedom from sin, a freedom to be good, to construct a new society and a new Church community. We have a big task and a big challenge, not only in Ukraine but also the Ukrainians in the diaspora. (Read entire article.)