Tea at Trianon: ISIS Be Warned

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, September 2, 2015

ISIS Be Warned

From Marge Fenelon:

When I read the accounts of the bombing and bulldozing of churches and monasteries in the Middle East – mainly in Iraq and Syria, but there have been others – and of the thousands of Christians kidnapped and slaughtered, I’m reminded of the Early Church.

Between the first persecution under Nero in 64 to the Edict of Milan in 313, Christians experienced 129 years of persecution. It’s unknown exactly how many Christians were killed during that time, but we can imagine the impact based on historical documents, inscriptions, and the catacombs.

It wasn’t easy being a Christian in the first three centuries.

Yet, they carried on. How?

They committed the Scriptures and traditions of the faith to memory and practiced in secret – homes, catacombs, hidden places. They communicated through symbols and supported one another in quiet, away from the eyes of the emperor and his henchmen (at least as much as was possible).

In much of the world, Christians still have the right, for the most part, to practice their faith and their churches still stand. But, what if that was to change? We’d be in the same predicament as the Early Church, and as the current Christians under persecution in the Middle East.

Perhaps we need to learn from them. (Read more.)