Tea at Trianon: Saint Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad

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 7, 2016

Saint Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad

From The National Catholic Register:

Saint Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad was a convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism. She was the fifth of thirteen children, whose family moved frequently due to difficult economic times. She was raised in the Reformed Church of Sweden. At the age of 18, she emigrated to New York to earn money for her family. First she studied nursing at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hospital. She worked with the sick and aged as a nurse in home care for the Catholics of New York City. Because of her acquaintance with so many Catholics, her interest in the Church grew, and she came to view it as the place where one could be closest to Christ. In 1902 she converted to Catholicism and received conditional baptism by Giovani Hagen, a Jesuit priest.

Later that year she sailed to Rome where she received her Confirmation. She returned briefly to New York, but then returned to Rome to enter religious life. Mother Mary Elizabeth decided on the Carmelite House of Saint Bridget of Sweden, and in 1906 she received permission to take the habit of the Brigittines (the Order of the Most Holy Saviour of Saint Bridget.) It wasn't her intention to found a new order originally. She only intended to revive the ancient order in the same house where Bridget had lived and died. Her dream was to take the Brigittine Sisters back to Sweden once more and let the order take root wherever God led it. She wanted to spread the true spirit of Christian unity and service to others, as it had been spread by the ancient Order of Saint Bridget. She worked to restore the order in Italy as well, especially in Rome. In 1923 she returned to Sweden where she ministered to the poor and tried to revitalize the Brigittine movement there. In 1937 she was successful in establishing Brigittine foundations in India.

The communities founded by Mother Elizabeth under a central authority without papal enclosure, and her insistence that they are an integral part of the ancient Order of the Most Holy Saviour, gave rise to much criticism and sometimes to controversy. But after thirty years of continuous trials and persevering through difficulties of all kinds, her order was canonically approved and on July 7, 1940, recognized by the Church. Today, her order consists of fifty houses spread over three continents, whose work is the charism given to them by St. Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad.

The Church's newest saint rescued Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis, hiding them in Rome. She was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” for this heroic work. Maria Pilar, a Brigittine nun from Spain, told the Catholic News Agency on June 5 that the canonization of their foundress is not only a recognition of her sanctity, but also gives publicity to “the example of a person who lived for God and sought the truth since she was a child—she was Lutheran and sought the truth as a young girl. (Read more.)