Tea at Trianon: Gardening, Prayer, and St. Teresa of Avila

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, May 6, 2018

Gardening, Prayer, and St. Teresa of Avila

From Catholic Stand:

The first way of watering the garden is by means of a well. For the gardener, this method is the most laborious. The gardener, i.e., the prayerful person, goes to the well of his mind and heart where he recalls the moments of God in his life. During the labor of recollection, external and internal noise will cause distractions that seek to pull the gardener away from his introspection. Nevertheless, it is through recollection that the life-giving waters of the Spirit are brought to the surface, drawn out of the deep recesses of the person’s mind and heart. St. Teresa even reminds us that as the water is brought to the surface, our own tears may become mixed with it, as the sadness of memories and past actions come to our mind (SA, Book 11, Ch. 9). However, this call to internal recollection is not an excuse for a person to ignore or abandon his commitments in the world.

We must not forget that friendship exists through charity, and we offer our charity to Christ through the care we show the people entrusted to us within our lives. We, as the gardener, experience the charity of Christ through the strength He offers us whenever we grasp the rope of our bucket and pull it up to the surface of our garden. Let us never be afraid of how deep our well is or how long our rope is because the strength of Christ, His love, has been entrusted to His gardeners. (Read more.)