Tea at Trianon: The Blind Nun

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, July 31, 2021

The Blind Nun

From Catholic News Agency:

Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, a giant of 20th-century Catholicism, will be beatified on Sept. 12. But the Primate of Poland who heroically resisted communism is not the only figure who will be raised to the altars that day in Warsaw. Wyszyński will be beatified alongside a nun who is little known outside her native Poland: Mother Elżbieta Róża Czacka. How did Czacka, who died in 1961 after a lifetime of quiet service to blind people, come to share a beatification ceremony with Poland’s “Primate of the Millennium”?
To answer that question, CNA spoke with Sr. Angelica Jose, F.S.C., whose life was deeply influenced by the woman known to Poles as Matka Czacka (Mother Czacka). As a student, she came across a brochure produced by the religious congregation Czacka founded and was touched by a photo of Czacka with a blind boy.
“Being fascinated by the charism of the congregation -- service for the physically and spiritually blind -- I stopped my studies at Poznań University of Life Sciences and entered the congregation,” Sr. Angelica Jose recalled. She continued: “What delights me about Mother Czacka is her tremendous passion for life for God -- in service of the blind. Her courage in accepting suffering and realism in life. And her trust in God’s Providence.”
Róża Czacka was born on Oct. 22, 1876, in Bila Tserkva, a city once located in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and known as Biała Cerkiew but situated today in central Ukraine. The sixth of seven children, she moved with her aristocratic family to Warsaw, where the young countess learned to play the piano, ride horses, and speak English, German, and French. Throughout her childhood, she suffered from eye problems. At the age of 22, she returned to the family’s estate in Ukraine for a summer vacation. While horse riding, she fell and was blinded. Her relatives struggled to accept her condition. (Read more.)