Tea at Trianon: Cardinal Sarah on Receiving Holy Communion

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, March 1, 2018

Cardinal Sarah on Receiving Holy Communion

From Fr. Z:

A combination of factors has lead to erosion of understanding of the Eucharist and reverence for the Eucharist. Included in these factors is a near universal insistence that everyone go to Communion at every Mass and, of course, lay ministers of the Communion because numbers of people going are up, and, above all, Communion in the hand. This has had a devastating effect on our Catholic identity and, hence, every sphere of life from family to conduct in the public square.

The other day I wrote about the problem of distribution of Holy Communion to huge numbers of people at mega-Masses. There is clearly a danger of profanation of the Eucharist, and yet they try. Now I see that the great Robert Card. Sarah – Terror of Libs – has written about the topic in the preface to a new book in Italian by a priest, Federico Bortoli entitled La distribuzione della comunione sulla mano. Profili storici, giuridici e pastorali. Excerpts were published by La Nuova Bussola and translations by LifeSite. Thus, Card. Sarah:

Providence, which disposes all thing wisely and sweetly, has offered us book The Distribution of Communion on the hand, by Federico Bortoli, just after having celebrated the centenary of the Fatima apparitions. Before the apparition of the Virgin Mary, in the Spring of 1916, the Angel of Peace appeared to Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco, and said to them: “Do not be afraid, I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me.” (…) In the Spring of 1916, at the third apparition of the Angel, the children realized that the Angel, who was always the same one, held in his left hand a chalice over which a host was suspended. (…) He gave the holy Host to Lucia, and the Blood of the chalice to Jacinta and Francisco, who remained on their knees, saying: “Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Make reparation for their crimes and console your God.” The Angel prostrated himself again on the ground, repeating the same prayer three times with Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco.
(Read more.)