Tea at Trianon: Mental Illness: Things to Know

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

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Mental Illness: Things to Know

From Aleteia:

“How could a loving God will or allow ________?” Like so many who’ve experienced a great tragedy, the question revisits me often. The sadness at times is overwhelming, so much that when I think about praying I become angry at God and doubt his goodness. But then somehow, His grace finds me. Again and again, he’s waiting at the kitchen sink or in that long car ride. Trust me, he tells me every time I stare at him on the cross. I see his pierced, outstretched hands, and I’m reminded of the redemption found in suffering. (Read more.)

julygirl said...: A friend of mine had surgery for skin cancer and her husband lamented about how could God let that happen to her, she was such a good person. I reminded him that sitting for hours in the sun as she did caused the skin cancer, not God.; August 27, 2017 at 8:18:00 PM EDT