Tea at Trianon: Mysticism and Magisterium, Part III

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, October 8, 2014

Mysticism and Magisterium, Part III

From Spiritual Direction:

The function of Tradition is to transmit the deposit of faith from one generation to the next as Christ delivered it to the Apostles. The apostolic mark of the true Church assures that this function is realized within Catholic ecclesial body that Christ founded. This means that the bishops, especially the bishop of Rome, trace their succession back to the Apostles and have received through their ordination the mandate to teach in Christ’s name. Thus, in the bishops, “the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ” (Dei Verbum 10).

This does not mean that everything every bishop, or even the pope says is guaranteed to be without error. Nor is there any assurance that every bishop at each moment will fulfill his mandate to teach only as Christ and the Apostles taught. But the working of divine providence is not restricted to the exercise of papal infallibility or the solemn declarations and condemnations of ecumenical councils. Christ is present in the details and His providence is exercised in and through the Church that He founded. (Read more.)