Tea at Trianon: How Jesus Transformed the Jewish Liturgical Calendar

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, June 17, 2025

How Jesus Transformed the Jewish Liturgical Calendar

From Vultus Christi:

The Israelite feast of Weeks (called Pentecost in Greek) was observed seven weeks after the feast of Firstfruits, on the fiftieth day. The feast of Firstfruits was the day after the Sabbath that fell in Passover week, that is, the first Sunday after Passover. The number fifty in Israel’s tradition represents an ultimate completion, for it is a Sabbath of Sabbaths, as seven weeks and a day adds up to fifty.
Whereas the feast of Firstfruits consecrates to God the very first fruits of the harvest, the feast of Pentecost (or “Weeks”) offers to God a portion of the whole harvest as a sort of thanksgiving tithe.

In time, this feast would come to commemorate the giving of the law at Mount Sinai as that event took place at the same time of year, a few months after the Passover. This is not just a coincidence: the reception of the law can be seen as the firstfruits harvest of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. Passover, commemorating the original passover of the Exodus, culminated in the giving of the Law at Sinai.

This can be understood typologically in light of the New Covenant. The day of the Firstfruit becomes the Sunday of the Resurrection, the first fruit of Christ’s redemption, for the Sunday on which our Lord rose from the dead was, that year, the feast of First Fruits. Saint Paul seems to be speaking of this when he writes in 1 Corinthians 15:20: “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (Read more.)