Tea at Trianon: “Exaggerated and Senseless Antiquarianism”

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

Friday, December 4, 2015

“Exaggerated and Senseless Antiquarianism”

From Vultus Christi:

It has become fashionable, over the past few decades, to introduce liturgical innovations by referring to practices, real or imagined, of the “ancient”, “primitive”, or “early” Church. One sees traces of this among certain new communities and movements, as well as among proponents of the distribution of Holy Communion in the hand. Very often the proponents of such practices appeal to “our Jewish roots” and, paradoxically, at the same time, privilege a style of polyphonic singing, mistakenly qualified as “Byzantine” when , in fact, it is an ersatz imitation of 19th century Russian chant. Metanies (an act of reverence performed by bowing and touching the floor with one’s right hand) abound, and there is a peculiar fondness for wee little wooden benches upon which worshipers half–kneel–half–crouch. Beautiful icons and vesture complete the picture. One detects the influence of people like Lanza del Vasto and the founder of the Community of the Beatitudes, with the occasional dash of charismatic happy–clappiness. The total effect can be altogether worthy and reverent . . . and yet, one has the impression of a certain artificiality, of an attempt to plaster foreign elements onto a structure that was not designed to accommodate them. In any case, it is not the Roman Rite.

[Another school characterised by the same appeal to practices of the “early Church” eschews the sobriety and dignity of the Roman Rite in favour of a more domestic approach to the sacred liturgy: the dining room table, pottery vessels or oversized chalices with handles, large altar bread, much sitting about in a circle, and singing to the accompaniment of guitars and tambourines. The emphasis shifts from the offering of the Sacrifice to the sharing of the meal; the whole experience is more didactic than latreutic. Such things do not reflect the practice of the “early Church” — they reflected a very dated and subjective projection of someone’s idea of what the liturgy of the “early Church” may have looked — and sounded — like.] (Read more.)