Tea at Trianon: On the Fourth Joyful Mystery

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

Friday, February 2, 2018

On the Fourth Joyful Mystery

From Aleteia:

What Luke doesn’t mention is an offering of five shekels to ransom Jesus, the first-born son. This exchange goes back to the time of the Exodus, when God called the Israelites to consecrate all firstborn sons to him (Exodus 13:2). Later, when the Levites were chosen to serve in the temple and to be priests of the Most High, God commanded the people to ransom each consecrated firstborn son from priestly service by making an offering of five shekels when the child was one month old (Numbers 18:16).

The reason, it seems, that Joseph and Mary did not fulfill this element of the law is that Jesus was not to be ransomed. Instead he was to remain consecrated as a priest of God, offered in sacrifice. Though Jesus was already in a covenant relationship with the Father, he was still circumcised, in order to be faithful to the Law. Though Mary had no sin, she made a sin offering, in order to be faithful to the Law. Here, though, Joseph and Mary were faithful to the Law not in offering the prescribed ransom but in offering their Son instead. (Read more.)