Tea at Trianon: At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

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

Thursday, December 15, 2016

At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

From EWTN:

An astonishing discovery has been made during repair work to the Edicule -- the ancient chamber housing Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Scientists have reported extraordinary phemonena that may support the authenticity of the Holy Shroud of Turin.

On October 26, 27 and 28, 2016 a group of scientists and religious authorities oversaw the removal of the marble slab that covers the tomb of Christ. Marie-Armelle Beaulieu, editor-in-chief of Terre Sainte Magazine, reports that some of the measuring instruments used by scientists were altered by electromagnetic disturbances when they were placed directly on the stone in which Christ’s body rested. The scientists reports that their measuring devices either malfunctioned or ceased to work at all. Aleteia reports

The phenomenon was confirmed by one of the scientists authorized to access the tomb. Later, one of the heads of the building and construction team, Antonia Moropoulou, indicated that it is really hard to imagine that someone would be willing to put in danger his or her reputation just because of a “publicity stunt.” Moreover, the journalist testifies to the scientists’ surprise during the opening of the slab: they hoped that the grave would be much lower than it was. Their conclusion: previously performed analyses with the instruments seemed to have been distorted by an electromagnetic disturbance.

The observation of unusual electromagnetic disturbances at the tomb of Our Lord may support a scientific hypothesis proposed to explain the creation of the mysterious image on the Holy Shroud of Turin. After five years of study and experiments scientists at Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development [ENEA] concluded that the Shroud of Turin cannot be a 'medieval fake'. The ENEA study proposed that the image may have been created by an intense source of light, but no man-made light would produce the required strength. (Read more.)