Tea at Trianon: St. Joseph and Chastity

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, March 26, 2014

St. Joseph and Chastity

A powerful testimony from Joseph Sciambra:

Within purity, the soul takes predominance over the body. In a strange way, it starts to become immaterial, whereas before: I would only associate with those whom I felt at least somewhat sexually drawn. It’s a liberating escape from a form of slavery that keeps us chained to the purely physical. Yet, it is not frigid, constraining, or emasculating. Like the stalwart St. Joseph, freedom and mastery over our bodies creates the fullness of man; a truly masculine person who needs only the Lord to fulfill him. He exudes manly strength everyday by not becoming a weak hostage to his passions. And, herein rests the great Love between Mary and Joseph, who always maintained their separate identities of female and male, because they united themselves with the all-embracing Love of their Son: Jesus Christ. For, by first developing our relationship with Our Lord, only then, are we able to entirely give ourselves to another. Because, as Mary and Joseph exemplified, the virtuous are still fully feminine and masculine, because, through their connection with God, they have reached the highest pinnacle of human development –truly made in the image and likeness of God. (Read more.)