Tea at Trianon: The Greece of St. Paul

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

Thursday, August 20, 2015

The Greece of St. Paul

From Aleteia:

A two-week trip to Greece will let priests in Rome follow in the steps of St. Paul: all the way from his conversion in Philippi, to his preaching in Corinth and finally his overnight stop in Crete as a prisoner.

“Studying the Bible in the places where it was written – the Holy Land, Greece, Turkey – is essential for all students of Scripture, in my opinion,” Father Scott Brodeur S.J. told CNA Aug. 13.

“Of course classroom lectures and readings are essential to the learning process, but well-planned trips to the Biblical lands really help people put that knowledge into better perspective.”

Fr. Brodeur is a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and a specialist in Pauline studies.

For the second year in a row he will be leading the “Paolo e il suo ambiente (Paul and his environment)” course in Greece, a two-week a licentiate-level study done through the Biblical Theology department of the Gregorian University.

Starting Sept. 7, the course is meant to introduce students to what would have been St. Paul's world in the first century.

“After visiting the baptistery area along the river bank in Philippi, you cannot read the story from Acts about Paul's conversion of St. Lydia in the same way,” Fr. Brodeur said. “The same with a visit to Corinth or Thessalonica – Paul's letters make more sense and take on greater meaning.”

The 33 students who will participate in the course this year are mostly religious and diocesan priests from the Gregorian, with the exception of one laywoman and her husband, and a few students from the other pontifical universities.

A handful of non-students coming just for the experience are also numbered among the group, including the rector of Pontifical Brazilian College.

“That said, the real diversity in the group is our national makeup: many different countries from all over the world are represented, and the one language we all share, thanks to Rome, is Italian,” the priest observed.

Structured around the major places in St. Paul's life and ministry in Greece, the course will take students to Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth and Crete.

The fact they will be traveling by bus will help those enrolled to appreciate the long distances Paul and the other apostles traveled by foot, which was “an extraordinary achievement for people in the first century!” Fr. Brodeur said.

After spending roughly a week and a half going around continental Greece, the group will spend their final three nights on Crete, which is the last place St. Paul – while in chains – visited before shipwrecking on the island of Malta.

Although the main goal is to visit the churches that Paul himself founded, the priest stressed that it’s also important to learn about the major pagan sanctuaries of the day.

In addition to visiting the shrines of Delphi, Olympia and Epidaurus, the students will also be taken to the Orthodox monasteries of the Meteora, which Fr. Brodeur noted are “unique in the whole world.”

St. Paul, he observed, “is the Church’s greatest evangelizer. He brought the Gospel to the nations and brought the Gentiles into the Church.”

“Thanks to his brilliant articulation of the Christian faith Christianity spread from Asia to Europe. He was a man of extraordinary intellect, courage and zeal,” he said, and expressed his admiration of the apostle for these and the many other virtues he possessed. (Read more.)