Tea at Trianon: Considering Mary’s Nightmares

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

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Considering Mary’s Nightmares

Our Lady of Sorrows. From Aleteia:

Being conceived without sin doesn’t protect you from trauma. Mary may have had nightmares. She may have found herself crying without even realizing that she was thinking of them, the children who had died to save her son, the parents who mourned them. And then perhaps her mind went to the prophecies, to the slaughter awaiting him.
We can’t know what she did then, how she talked herself down or whether she even needed to. But I have a feeling that there were moments when the tears spilled over, just as there are for us, and that a young, heartbroken Mary pulled a squirmy Jesus to herself and clung to him. When she forgot how to be a woman filled with joy, she grabbed ahold of Jesus and belonging to him held the darkness at bay for a while.
I don’t know the trauma you’ve dealt with, the guilt you hold on to, or the fears you have for the future. But your Mother does. And she’s suffered something similar herself. As you walk with the Lord into uncertainty, in a life where it seems the only inevitability is the Cross, take a lesson from the Blessed Mother: cling to Jesus. Turn from the memories and the dread and fix your eyes on him. In a world of slaughtered innocents, only he can bring peace. (Read more.)