Tea at Trianon: Compassion, Pity, and Mercy

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

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Compassion, Pity, and Mercy

My friend Paula has just been received into the Catholic Church and she started a beautiful new blog to celebrate. Here is a quote from Dr. Alice von Hildebrand:

Toward sinful men we should be animated by a holy pity. (as opposed to an hypocritical condescending one) This holy pity challenges us to go on our knees and ardently pray for their conversion. This is the magnificent meaning of many penitential orders. They are based on the trust that God’s infinite goodness will listen to the prayers of the innocent for their guilty brothers.

Christ has delegated the merciful power to forgive sins to His Church. It is clearly a mark of the true Church. (Read entire post.)