Tea at Trianon: The Angelus

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, January 4, 2019

The Angelus

From Finer Femininity:

The Angelus takes its name from the first word of the Latin form of the prayer: “Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae,” which means, “The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.” That angel announced the most important news ever brought to earth. That angel spoke of the greatest fact in all history, the fact that the Son of God became man, was conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

Mother Church wants us never to forget that fact. She wants us to think of it at least three times every day. From Catholic steeples throughout the land she calls to her children to remember prayerfully this Greatest event of all time.

The Angelus devotion developed gradually. Most likely it began to form in the ancient monastic custom of reciting the “Little Office of the Blessed Virgin.” In that office they often repeated the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary. The people began to use these words as a daily prayer.

St. Bonaventure, the Seraphic Doctor, in the general chapter of the Franciscan Order in Paris in 1226, and later at Assisi, ordered the triple salutation of the Blessed Virgin, called the Angelus, to be recited every evening at 6 o’clock in honor of the incarnation. Finally, after several changes, the Angelus took the form which it has today. If you want the biblical background of this devotion and the words of this prayer, read the Gospel story as found in the first chapter of St. Luke from verse 26 to 42. From this passage the first half of the Hail Mary and the first and second versicles and their responses are taken, while the third versicle and response are from the Gospel according to St. John, 1:14. (Read more.)