Tea at Trianon: Strength and Solace in ‘The Sadness of Christ’

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

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Strength and Solace in ‘The Sadness of Christ’

From Tod Worner:

No matter how many Holy Weeks I am blessed to live through, I will never fully understand it. How God could endure so much torment for so great a gain on behalf of so little a man as me defies rational explanation. The cosmic reconciliation of justice and mercy in a broken man on a cross utterly boggles my mind. But God’s grace is not dependent upon my comprehension. It simply is. It is of God. And I am in awe of it.
As I write this, it is late at night. Playing on the television screen across the room is Robert Bolt’s brilliant play-made-movie A Man for All Seasons.I can’t tell you how often I have watched this brilliant story of the courage and martyrdom of St. Thomas More, but Holy Week is the perfect time to watch it again. In the name of Christ and his Church, St. Thomas saw himself stripped of his home, his family, his freedom and ultimately his life.
The last book that St. Thomas wrote during his imprisonment was The Sadness of Christ, a searing reflection on the Agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. It wrestles with the anxiety, fear and despair that can come out of martyrdom. Surely, this reflection provided some degree of comfort and sense to the horrors that St. Thomas was enduring. But it also speaks to you and me in our modern daily worries, uncertainties and imperfections. It is an extraordinary thing that, while achieving such great ends for the kingdom of God, for you and for me, Christ’s Passion and St. Thomas’ martyrdom would tragically fully consume them. (Read more.)