Tea at Trianon: Life's Troubles

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, April 19, 2014

Life's Troubles

Fr. Mark and his monks in Ireland have had a disaster happen on Good Friday. Please pray for them. Father has sought consolation in the writings of Mother Mectilde, specifically from her letter to the Duchess of Orleans. To quote:

Abandon yourself to the unknown designs of His love, for He knows how to plunge one into hell and draw one out of it. Never will a soul, subjected to His divine operations, perish. The hand that wounds in such dispositions is rigorous and gentle, opening the wound and healing it, bringing together both the sword and the remedy. You must not trouble yourself in this trial; it is what divine love does in souls who, without reserve, want to be all transformed into Jesus Christ. Such souls must be purified and, to this end, tribulations serve as fire. (Read more.)