Tea at Trianon: The March for Life

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

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The March for Life

Our Lady will lead.

Taking a quarter of the student population more than 1,000 miles is expensive, but Kathryn said she got a call over Christmas break from the college’s advancement office that they had found a donor.

“Her only stipulation was that we carry a copy of a picture she had seen on EWTN of the Blessed Mother with Jesus in her womb,” said Kathryn.

The students also got a call from the World Apostolate of Fatima — Our Lady’s Blue Army. The group has a statue of Our Lady of Fatima that was blessed by Pope Francis in October a week after he consecrated the world to Mary. They wanted Benedictine College to carry the statue in the March for Life, as the first leg of its nationwide tour.

That is appropriate, because this year has become a kind of Marian Year on campus after Benedictine College was consecrated to Mary on Sept. 8 — Mary’s birthday — by Abbot James Albers. As a student, Albers participated in the college’s first March for Life trips, and he will ride the bus with students and will be holding the lead-off banner in the March.

So will President Stephen D. Minnis, who started the Memorare Army to pray for religious liberty and for the college, and who has helped lead the school in Marian devotion. Hundreds of the college’s students have consecrated themselves to Mary at the school this year, following his example and encouragement.

When I asked students why they were marching, senior Karianne Bolduc told me, “It is my goal to grow closer to Mary this year.”

What does Mary have to do with the March for Life? “Spiritual adoption,” said Karianne. “As a Catholic, I believe that as Jesus was dying on the cross, he gave Mary to each of us as our spiritual mother.” (Read more.)