Tea at Trianon: “This is my Body”

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

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

“This is my Body”

From The Cordial Catholic:

As a Catholic, I believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharistic elements. That is to say, I believe that through a genuine miracle, which happens at every Mass, the bread and the wine become Jesus’s real flesh and blood—while still appearing to be bread and wine (and that’s part of the miracle). Does this sound crazy? As a Protestant, I believed that the Lord’s Supper—Communion—was a memorial feast. It was a commemorative ceremony we celebrated as a church or small group of believers to remember Jesus’s once-and-for-all sacrifice. I also believed that when Jesus said, “This is my body,” he was speaking metaphorically and instead meant, “This represents my body.” But I changed my mind; I’ve come to believe differently. Jesus wasn’t instituting a mere memorial feast, He was giving us His real flesh and blood. Jesus wasn’t simply asking us to do something, once in a while, in memory of Him. He was giving us a gift. I went from believing that the bread and wine were symbols of Jesus’s sacrifice, to believing that the bread and wine were Jesus. When Jesus stood in front of his followers and said, “This is my body,” I’ve come to believe he meant it. (Read more.)