Tea at Trianon: The House of Bread

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 28, 2017

The House of Bread

From Speramus:

After Jesus was born Our Lady wrapped him in swaddling-clothes and laid him in a manger, a place where animals were fed because there was no room for them in the inn. The manger represents the wood of the cross his future sacrifice in time for our sins. The manger also foreshadows the altars in every Catholic church. Here Jesus becomes incarnate again, this time hidden not in the flesh of a human nature but in the form of bread. At the words of consecration during every Holy Mass Jesus is born again and immolated. We are present at Bethlehem and at Calvary. Imagine that brute animals ate from the manger the creator of the world slept in! This scene showed us that God would feed his own creatures with the manna of His own Body and Blood so that we would be capable of entering into eternal life with Him. What a great gift of sheer grace for mortal man to become immortal with God!

The Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote: “Material food first of all turns itself into the person who eats it, and as a consequence, restores his losses and increases his vital energies. Spiritual food, on the other hand, turns the person who eats it into Itself, and thus the proper effect of the Eucharistic sacrament is the conversion of man into Christ, so that he may no longer live for himself, but that Christ may live in Him. We become sons and daughters of God. St. Augustine, recorded similar words which he heard in the Spirit from the Lord. We find them in the account of his conversion, the Confession: “I am the food of grown men. Grow, and you shall feed upon me. You will not change me into yourself, as you change food into your flesh, but you will be changed into me!”
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consolata said...: Thank you so much for that meditation, and the link to continue it - so very beautiful, so profound.; January 4, 2017 at 7:05:00 AM EST