Tea at Trianon: Fasting and Praying

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

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Fasting and Praying

From Cora Evans:

We fast as an eschatological sign. This is a fancy term that means that we fast as reminder that there is something greater than this world. There are great things in this world, food being one of them. But of all the created things in this world, there is something greater awaiting us- heaven. Thus we must be willing to give up even the good things of this world for heaven. This is why a priest or religious sister gives up the greatest created good- marriage- for heaven. Their sacrifice is a larger sacrifice that we are also called to take part in; a sacrifice of something good and real for something even better and even more real.

This is what separates Christian fasting from fasting done in other religions around the world. The recognition that this world is created good, contains good things, and that creation can point us towards God is something unique to the Jewish-Christian tradition. Other religions have varying views of this world, of creation. Fasting, for many other religions, involves realizing that the created world is, in fact, not good. However, for the Christian we realize that the created world is good, in fact is very good in the words from Genesis. But as good as it is, there is something better. Heaven is better and in order to realize this, we fast from the goods of this world for something better. (Read more.)