Tea at Trianon: The Most Radical Call

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, May 31, 2019

The Most Radical Call

From Catholic Exchange:

To be a saint is the most radical call of all. It is a call to abandon ourselves freely in self-emptying love to God and our neighbor. It is to relinquish our hold on this world so that we may enter freely into the next. In becoming a saint, we are called to give God everything. We can hold nothing back from Him.

In this abandonment, we learn to live in faith, hope, and charity as we become the person God created us to be. It is in giving ourselves completely to God that we are re-made and we enter into the joy He desires to give to us.

The demands God’s love places on us can be very difficult at times. We are fallen human beings who face weaknesses, temptations, trials, illness, and character defects that make our journey arduous. Even when we think we are making progress, we find ourselves slipping and losing ground. It is in these times that we come to depend on God more fully. We see how we are made strong in our weaknesses, as St. Paul reminds us. (Read more.)