Tea at Trianon: Making Men

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

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Making Men

From Knights of the Holy Eucharist:

Without a grounding, a placement, a sense of one’s history and identity we can lose sight of the “great trajectory” and the living-stream of grace and sacrifice passed on from our parents, and grandparents, and all generations that have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. A gift given by hidden hands precisely for that one crucial moment when we must choose the good! When youth realize that faith has bought them a moment of freedom so they may choose to love. That is a confirmation moment.

And there it is again, that word – confirmation.

For us Catholics the great sacrament of Confirmation is often seen as a rite of passage, a wellspring to an adult life, a mature Christian life, where our baptism is crowned by the light of the Holy Spirit. We are readied for battle, to become the Lord’s knights, and make of ourselves a great oblation for the kingdom, as Christ did for us.

But is this really what Confirmation is?

Does not the Roman rite share with the eastern rite (the Oriental Churches) as normative that the sacraments of baptism, the Holy Eucharist, and confirmation can be taken together at a very early age to help the soul drink deeply of the sacramental wellspring, well before a child reaches early teens and grade 8? I had heard this before. But if true how would or how could this spiritual triple run help our youth, especially our young men, to become real men? (Read more.)