Tea at Trianon: Refugees and the Holy Family

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, January 4, 2018

Refugees and the Holy Family

From Fr. Z via Catholicism Pure and Simple:

The Holy Family were “refugees”. Sort of, but not in the way that liberals want you to believe. The Holy Family goes first to Nazareth because of the census. If you are going to your ancestral town mandated census, you are not a refugee.

“But Father! But Father!, libs are squealing, “They were denied a room in the inn. Those innkeepers were mean refugee hating meanies! They were undocumented migrants and the haters refused to let them in. That’s what YOU would do! That’s because you HATE VATICAN II!” If you register in the census, you are not “undocumented”.

They weren’t migrants, because they were only there to register and then return home to Nazareth. They didn’t get to stay at the inn or the khan, because – try to follow this – there was no room at the inn. Which means there was no room at the inn. They weren’t give room because there wasn’t any. If there had been a room, they would have been given a room. It was customary to take travelers into homes, as when people journeyed to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice. As Alfred Edersheim explains the denial of a room had nothing to do with their poverty. The rabbinic teaching was that travelers were to be received as the shekinah should be received. So, they weren’t rejected because they were poor, or “different” or foreigners, blah blah blah. The inn or khan was FULL.

The Holy Family went to Egypt. Why? Just before the Patron Saint of Planned Parenthood, Herod, ordered the slaughter of all the babies, an angel told Joseph in a dream to take his family to Egypt. If an angel tells you to do something, you do it. So, the flight into Egypt was not just due to the awful circumstances caused by Herod, it is also divinely directed because of what Herod was going to do. Also, they had to go Egypt so that the prophecy would be fulfilled:

That it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Out of Egypt have I called my son. (Matthew 2:15)
So, no, the Holy Family, seeking refuge in Egypt at the specific direction of God, is not the archetype of all refugees today. If they sought refuge in Egypt, they were, in a sense, “refugees”. However, they were a) they were three people, not thousands and they were b) fleeing the concrete danger of murder of their Child. They sought sanctuary. Moreover, the Holy Family were no threat to the national security of Egypt. When the danger was over, they went home.

It is interesting to note that the Joseph of Genesis was driven into Egypt, which led to the enslavement of the People. Joseph of the New Testament was driven into Egypt, which led to the salvation of the People. Herod and Pharaoh both ordered the slaughter of infants. Moses and Jesus both escaped slaughter in Egypt and both led an exodus from bondage. (Read more.)