Tea at Trianon: The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart

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, May 16, 2017

The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart

From La Stampa:

Much has been written over the years about Fatima especially concerning the third secret, and the meaning of the prophecy of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart. It must be stated that unfortunately, Fatima has been misunderstood at times; some are fixated by the “political” nature of its message concerning Russia—when in reality the spiritual message is the heart of it. If Russia was the original warning, it was because it would be the first manifestation of militant atheism which has now spread throughout the western world under various forms. To see Russia as some magic formula for the future is to misunderstand the biblical sense of prophecy. Another erroneous interpretation is to see the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart as the gateway to a millenarian style era of peace; a temporal triumph which in reality would be nothing more than a cessation of hostilities before the apocalypse at the end of the world. The Gospels clearly tell us that good and evil will always remain; as Gaudium et Spes taught: “For a monumental struggle against the powers of darkness pervades the whole history of man. The battle was joined from the very origins of the world and will continue until the last day, as the Lord has attested.” So to what does Fatima refer? Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State was explicit in his remarks prior to leaving for Fatima this weekend: “the prophetic mission of Fatima is to remind the Church what she is, what she must continue to be, a church that announces in today’s world, a community that proclaims new heavens and earth and which awaits, almost anticipates them.”

If we look at a succession of papal writings, we see how Cardinal Parolin’s comments are pin point accurate. Blessed Paul VI saw the Second Coming of Jesus symbolically anticipated in the October 13th 1917 miracle of the sun: “It was eschatological in the sense that it was like a repetition or an annunciation of a scene at the end of time for all humanity assembled together.” St. John Paul II in his homily at the Shrine in 1982 spoke of the new heaven and new earth which will come at the end of the world: “We look towards him who sits upon the throne and says ‘Behold, I make all things new’ (cf. Rev 21:15). And together with the Evangelist and Apostle we try to see with the eyes of faith “new heavens and new earth.” And on March 25, 1984, the day in which St. John Paul II consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, he also recited a little known prayer before the Statue of Our Lady imploring the coming of a “new world.” (Read more.)