Tea at Trianon: Chastity is How We See God

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

Sunday, March 15, 2026

Chastity is How We See God

From Pondus Meum Amor Meus:

Chastity is vital. This much is clear. But I want us to understand how important it is to all of us at all times, whether you’re single, celibate, married, old, or young.
Chastity is a virtue, which means it’s a positive, life-giving presence infused into us. Chastity is not limited to only mortification and penance against our bodies. It is not exclusively negative, or defined by what we are trying to escape from. Of course, the spiritual life is disciplined and includes penance, meaning we make every effort to flee from sin. We strive to maintain custody of the eyes, and modesty, and to reject disordered desires.
But we get chastity wrong if we think of it only as a lack. A Christian is not someone who withdraws, who cedes the world to evil, who escapes. Quite the opposite. We are here to redeem the world, to replant paradise, to build the City of God. We are for the world. Virtue is not emptiness. It is plenitude, a joyful happiness so overwhelming that we hardly know how it can fit into this world. It spills out of us as if over the lip of a chalice and we feast in the presence of our enemies.
If being unchaste is defined by turning people and things into objects of lust, and if it is the debasement of our senses, then chastity is the virtue whereby we heal the senses and, instead of objectifying and selfish use of the created world, our chastened senses deliver us through the threshold of beauty into wholeness. The senses are lifted up and transfigured, unveiling intelligible forms that lead into the unity of God. (Read more.)