Tea at Trianon: The Eighth Degree of Humility

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

Saturday, November 19, 2016

The Eighth Degree of Humility

From Vultus Christi:

The brother who nourishes a secret belief in his own superiority will always find opportunities to stand out, to stand apart, to preserve the little difference that reinforces this belief. The brother who cannot give up his personal way of doing things fears that, if he starts doing everything as others do, he will cease being special, and this he finds terrifying. To such a brother the abbot must repeat Saint Benedict’s injunction again and again, firmly, and with patience: “Do nothing except what is authorised by the common rule of the monastery, or the example of the seniors”.

In a newly founded monastery where the common rule is not yet entirely consolidated, and where there are few seniors, these few seniors must give the example of a quiet regularity, shunning anything that smacks of the spectacular or the exotic. One cannot overestimate the importance of fostering regularity; by this, I do not mean a harsh regime that brooks no exceptions. I refer rather to the steady rhythm that can admit of the occasional exception and, without conceding to idiosyncrasies, accommodate the dispensations required by fluctuations in health, by changing circumstances, and by particular needs. (Read more.)