The Flight from Hell

From First Things:

The trivialization of hell and its dangers is one of the great maladies of post-Conciliar thinking. The British author Piers Paul Read rightly asks: “Why in particular are we so rarely warned that we run a real risk of spending eternity in torment?” Read complains that “while it is right to warn that smoking will cause the death of the body, it is intolerable to point to sins that might lead to the death of the soul.” It is a problem that reaches far beyond the Catholic Church, as seen by the controversy among Evangelicals over Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins.

The modern flight from hell usually takes one of three forms: outright denial, passive indifference, or—indirectly—belief in universal salvation. The latter has become increasingly attractive to certain Christians, for it allows them to declare their full belief in hell and its eternity while at the same time promote the idea (even though they cannot guarantee it) that no one actually goes there. An empty hell is nothing to fear, or spend one’s life trying to teach about, or avoid. (Read entire post.)

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October 13, 1917: The Dance of the Sun

October 13, 2012 marks the ninety-fifth anniversary of the final apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, when the sun swirled in the sky, a phenomena witnessed by thousands of people. The three children-- Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta-- saw Our Lady appear as the joyful Virgin Mother, the Sorrowful Mother, and finally as Our Glorious Lady of Mount Carmel. They also saw St. Joseph in the sky, holding the Child Jesus. In his book entitled St. Joseph, Fatima, and Fatherhood, Monsignor Joseph A. Cirrincione offers some thought-provoking reflections.

The role of the priest in relation to Christ is strikingly analogous to the role of St. Joseph in relation to God the Father. Just as the Eternal Father willed to share His Fatherhood with St. Joseph...so Jesus willed to share His Fatherhood with the priest....

Likewise, "the sun stands out in a special way as a symbol and figure of God, and also of His Church...." Monsignor goes on to say that at Fatima "the 'miracle of the sun' represents not so much a threat of evils to come as it does a foreshadowing of the dethronement of God the Father, and an intimation of the appalling consequences inevitably to follow." One month after the "dance" of the sun in Fatima, the Communists took control of Russia.

The combination of atheism and secularism-- which practically speaking amounts to the universal and official rejection of the Fatherhood of God by mankind across the entire face of the earth....And I believe it was foreshadowed by the 'miracle of the sun' at Fatima in 1917.

[....]

Rejection of the Fatherhood of God by the vast majority of mankind inevitably has set in motion a chain reaction of consequences affecting fatherhood under every aspect that we have considered here. The notion of fatherhood in many families, for example, has been reduced to a biological fact. And the role of the father as the head of the family has completely gone out of style...the disintegration of the family inexorably and inevitably is leading to the disintegration of society itself....But the spirit of anti-fatherhood has entered even the Catholic Church. Recognition of the fatherhood of the Vicar of Christ...has eroded to an alarming degree...the role of priestly fatherhood is now coveted by women, seeking to escape the noble destiny which God has prepared for their sex, but which nevertheless they are taught to regard with drudgery.

Our Lady of Fatima's remedy for societal and moral ills is the prayer of the rosary, consecration to her Immaculate Heart (symbolized by wearing the brown scapular), and the loving performance of our daily duties. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for Christians to perform the most basic duties of their individual states of life. Yet it is the fulfillment of our ordinary duties upon which our salvation depends. Let us have an ever increasing confidence in the prayers and protection of the Mother of Mercy. Share

The Nun and The Duchess

Some words of wisdom from Mother Mectilde de Bar to the Duchess of Orleans.

It will be impossible for you to keep on much longer if you are going to let your afflictions weigh you down so. Our Lord wills that your soul should rise above all that surrounds you. Attach yourself gently to God. You possess Him, in faith, within yourself. You needn't search for Him long. He wants you to be renewed in His Spirit. Your suffering nature, which, I see, has almost no vigour, needs to make a little effort. It mustn't happen that so beautiful an offering* be consumed in any fire other than that of of pure and divine love; this would be to fall short of God's designs on your soul. Your soul cannot ignore that you are being led by the gentleness and love that make one rest in God. Simply surrender all that you are to His holy Providence. Abandon everything to Him and you will no more be anxious about anything. (Read entire post.)

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A Lady's Toilette

Throughout the ages, getting ready to face the world is no small task for a woman. Gio has some lovely paintings to share.

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The Vanished American Hobo

Joshua Snyder quotes Jack Kerouac:

In Brueghel's time children danced around the hobo, he wore huge and raggy clothes and always looked straight ahead indifferent to the children, and the families didnt mind the children playing with the hobo, it was a natural thing. But today mothers hold tight to their children when the hobo passes through town because of what newspapers made the hobo to be -- the rapist, the strangler, child-eater. -- Stay away from strangers, they'll give you poison candy. Though the Brueghel hobo and the hobo today are the same, the children are different. -- Where is even the Chaplinesque hobo? The old Divine Comedy hobo? The hobo is Virgil, he leadeth. -- The hobo enters the child's world (like in the famous painting by Brueghel of a huge hobo solemnly passing through the washtub village being barked at and laughed at by children, St. Pied Piper) but today it's an adult world, it's not a child's world. -- Today the hobo's made to slink -- everybody's watching the cop heroes on TV. (Read entire post.)

Jack wrote this about forty years ago and things have changed. Not only the children are different, but the hobos, too. Share

The Woodville Marriage

In this magnificent picture, painted in the 1920's by Ernest Board, the young King Edward IV presents his new queen, Elizabeth Woodville, whom he had secretly married, to his people at Reading Abbey. It was Michaelmas Day, September 29, 1464. The couple had been married the previous May. The bride was escorted by the King's brother, the Duke of Clarence and his cousin, the Earl of Warwick. According to author Susan Higginbotham:

On May 1, 1464, twenty-two-year-old Edward IV, on his way north to deal with a Lancastrian threat, combined pleasure with business. He left his camp at Stony Stratford for the nearby town of Grafton, where he married Elizabeth Woodville, a widow several years his senior with two small sons and a very large family. The marriage remained secret until September, when Edward IV announced it to his dumbfounded council.

No one knows when Edward IV and Elizabeth met or when they began courting, although Elizabeth’s father, Richard Woodville, had been a member of the king’s council for some time. Chroniclers added various embellishments over the years—that Elizabeth, in difficulty about her dower lands, waited under a tree with her young sons, then threw herself at the king’s feet when he passed by; that Edward IV, at first planning to seduce Elizabeth rather than to marry her, placed a dagger at her throat; that Elizabeth herself put a dagger to her throat—but the couple themselves kept a demure silence on the matter. Even the May 1 date has been questioned by some; Elizabeth’s biographer David Baldwin suggests that it was assigned pursuant to romantic tradition and that the couple actually married later in the summer. What is clear, though, is that as late as April 13, 1464, Elizabeth herself seems to have no idea about the impending nuptials, for on that date she entered into a financial arrangement with her neighbor William Hastings, Edward IV’s boon companion. The arrangement, under which William promised to assist Elizabeth in recovering some of her lands in return for a share of profits, would have hardly been necessary had Elizabeth known she was shortly to be queen of England.

Only one source, Fabian’s Chronicle, details the wedding itself. According to Fabian, no one was present at the early-morning wedding but the spouses, Elizabeth’s mother, the priest, two gentlewomen, and a young man who helped the priest sing. “After which spousals ended, [Edward] went to bed, and so tarried there three or four hours, and after departed and rode again to Stony Stratford, and came as though he had been hunting, and there went to bed again.”

Elizabeth’s mother was later accused by a follower of the Earl of Warwick of having brought the match about by witchcraft. Although she was acquitted of the charge in 1470, it made a reappearance in 1484 in Titulus Regius, the document spelling out Richard III’s claim to the throne, where both mother and daughter are accused of using witchcraft to lure Edward into matrimony. The accusation has provided much fodder for historical novelists and for Ricardians, who have noted with delight that April 30 was St. Walpurga’s Eve and thus a fitting day for Jacquetta to work her black arts in preparation for the marriage the next morning. One Ricardian, W. E. Hampton, in “Witchcraft and the Sons of York” (The Ricardian, March 1980), even suggests that Edward IV’s fatigue at Stony Stratford can be attributed to “the orgiastic nature of the rites to which he may have been introduced.” (More generous minds might attribute his fatigue to three or four hours in the bridal bed, perhaps not sleeping the entire time, plus a journey on horseback to and from Grafton, or one could suppose he was feigning fatigue from his nonexistent hunting trip.) Generally not noted by the Woodvilles-as-witches contingent is the conventional Christian piety Elizabeth exhibited during her time as queen.

Once Edward IV himself made the marriage public, he treated his new bride in duly royal fashion, presenting her formally before his council at Michaelmas in 1464 and giving her a grand coronation the following May. Though little is known about the private relations of the couple, Elizabeth bore the king’s children regularly, a mark of his continuing interest in her even after she had produced the needed “heir and a spare,” and played an influential role in the bringing-up of their eldest son, Edward, a mark of the king’s trust in her. (Read entire post.)

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Declining Standards

Declining standards in teaching history.

There is further and shocking evidence of declining educational standards in History in the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers today. It appears that Eton - yes, Eton - is producing pupils who, however seemingly successful in their later careers, leave the school knowing the date of Magna Carta, always associated with Runnymede just down the road from Eton, but not what the two words mean. This is disgraceful. It does not say very much for Citizenship Education. It does not say very much for PPEists with Firsts from Oxford. The Prime Minister should do something about it. (Read entire post.)

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Antiquity at Versailles

Andiron from Marie-Antoinette's bedchamber

There is a new exhibition at Versailles about how the art of ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt influenced the decor of the palace and gardens.

A world dominated by the figure of Apollo and designed for the Sun King, the Palace of Versailles is packed with references to Greek and Roman Antiquity and mythology.

From the collections of antique pieces amassed by the kings to the outstanding decorative work featuring the gods and heroes of the Pantheon, this exhibition explores all the relations between Versailles and Antiquity.

For the first time since the Revolution, the Diana of Versailles, the Venus of Arles, the Cincinnatus and some of the most prestigious antiques of the Louvre museum return to Versailles.

Also for the first time, sets of works hitherto scattered around different institutions are brought together again and works invisible to the public for decades are once again on view.

The exhibition design by the theatre and ballet director Pier Luigi Pizzi creates surprises and exciting effects in its original display of the works. The exhibition thus gives us a graphic reminder of the atmosphere that reigned during the monarchical period in the Palace of Versailles, a theatre dedicated to the royal glory whose aesthetic themes were dominated by permanent references to the world of Antiquity.

Practical information

Exhibition from 13 November 2012 to 17 March 2013
Africa and Crimea rooms
Admission included in the Palace and Passport tickets (Read entire post.)

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Hobsbawm and the Fatal Appeal of Revolution

Eric Hobsbawn shaped the way many contemporary Americans view the French Revolution. I remember having to read him in high school.  He portrayed Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette as complete nitwits. To quote from The Spectator:

Hobsbawm’s communism was a kind of religion. This is not a novel observation, merely one worth keeping in mind. Understood in this fashion his reluctance to grant his opponents the recantation they desired becomes more understandable. The true believer betrayed by actual events invariably finds himself in a lonely place. Nevertheless, I can understand how it can be that the purity of the original idea actually gains force the more the idea is corrupted by man’s imperfect attempts to put it into deliverable practice. There’s always a place for the melancholy of betrayed promise. (Read entire post.)

Paul Gottfried reflects upon the totalitarian double standard, saying:

What is hard for anyone who is not some kind of leftist ideologue to shove down the memory hole is Hobsbawm’s lifelong dedication to communism, most particularly his unswerving loyalty to Stalin’s memory...The paper also tells us that his friend and Marxist associate Christopher Hill had dropped out of the CP by the 1970s but Hobsbawm chose a different course. That path was of course one of total subservience to the Soviet Union, although Hobsbawm had objected when Khrushchev in 1956 had dared to comment on Stalin’s “cult of personality.”

One could only imagine, as my son reminded me, what the same sources would say if Hobsbawm, like Martin Heidegger, had once rashly come out in support of the Third Reich, even if, as in the case of one of the West’s greatest philosophers, he had subsequently withdrawn from politics. Obviously being a lifelong Stalinist is not like being a temporary Nazi in 1933. It brings bouquets for one’s idealism rather than a rash of anti-fascist tirades, masquerading as books, which are reviewed in the elite press. But let’s not pick such an extreme example. Let’s imagine that Hobsbawm went from being a Stalinist to something less ominous than a fleeting Nazi enthusiast. What if he had gone from defending the gulags to being an opponent of gay marriage? Would the Guardian have treated him any worse when he died at 95 as a one-time “Marxist historian”? You bet it would. (Read entire article.)

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