Tea at Trianon

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, September 8, 2009

Le-Puy-en-Velay

Le-Puy-en-Velay is the site of the shrine of Our Lady of France, one of the most ancient shrines in France, as well as being one of the starting points of the pilgrimage road to Compostela. The last time we visited France my husband and I drove there from Toulouse. Driving through the mountains of Auvergne was like being in heaven and hell at the same time; the scenery was spectacular beyond words while the drops off the sides of the cliffs upon which we were driving were enough to make me paralyzed with terror. As difficult as it was to get to Le-Puy-en-Velay in 1999, I could only imagine the perils of getting there in the Middle Ages. And yet many people have journeyed to the shrine over the centuries, including peasants like St. Joan of Arc's mother, Isabelle Romée.

According to France This Way:

Le Puy en Velay, in the heart of the Massif central, is in an impressive setting surrounded by high hills and the famous conical volcano forms of the region.

This does make Le Puy a bit difficult to reach, but it is a journey worth the trouble. The town is a major attraction with visitors, despite its relative isolation and receives more than 700,000 visitors each year.

Le Puy is above all famous for being the start point of one of the main pilgrimage paths in France that lead to Santiago de Compostella, and the religious monuments that are a result of this important historical role.

The origin of the shrine of Our Lady is describes as follows:

Legend traces the origin of the pilgrimage of Le Puy to an apparition of the Blessed Virgin to a sick widow whom St. Martial had converted. No French pilgrimage was more frequented in the Middle Ages. Charlemagne came twice, in 772 and 800; there is a legend that in 772 he established a foundation at the cathedral for ten poor canons (chanoines de paupérie), and he chose Le Puy, with Aachen and Saint-Gilles, as a centre for the collection of Peter's Pence. Charles the Bald visited Le Puy in 877, Eudes in 892, Robert in 1029, Philip Augustus in 1183. Louis IX met the King of Aragon there in 1245; and in 1254 passing through Le Puy on his return from the Holy Land, he gave to the cathedral an ebony image of the Blessed Virgin clothed in gold brocade. After him, Le Puy was visited by Philip the Bold in 1282, by Philip the Fair in 1285, by Charles VI in 1394, by Charles VII in 1420, and by the mother of Blessed Joan of Arc in 1429. Louis XI made the pilgrimage in 1436 and 1475, and in 1476 halted three leagues from the city and went to the cathedral barefooted. Charles VIII visited it in 1495, Francis I in 1533. Theodulph, Bishop of Orléans, brought to Our Lady of Le Puy, as an ex-voto for his deliverance, a magnificent Bible, the letters of which were made of plates of gold and silver, which he had himself put together, about 820, while in prison at Angers. St. Mayeul, St. Odilon, St. Robert, St. Hugh of Grenoble, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. John Francis Regis were pilgrims to Le Puy.

The statue of Our Lady of France and the ancient chapel of Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe are built of the top of two extinct volcanoes. I was so captivated by Le-Puy-en-Velay and Auvergne that I made the region the setting from which the heroine in my new novel sets forth on her adventures.

More phenomenal photos HERE, HERE and HERE. Share

Living the Virtue of Modesty

Through dress and thought. Share

Monday, September 7, 2009

Chivalry in Art

Here is a collection of pre-Raphaelite art from the Wintery Knight Blog. (Via Mary Victrix) To quote:

Men should be judged by godly women based on whether they are doing what God wants them to do. Those men who are willing to put God first in their planning should be recognized as special. Standard procedure is to give committed Christian men a token with the lady’s colors that he can carry into battle.

New Movie about the Blessed Mother

It sounds promising, especially since highly respected Catholic writer Barbara Nicolosi Harrington wrote the screenplay. I am looking forward to seeing it. More HERE. (Via Colleen Hammond) Share

The Loss of Shame

Fr. Angelo continues to discuss prudery versus modesty and how sometimes a little shame can be a good thing.

Real prudery—it is true—is unresolved lust. However, the [contemporary] crusaders misappropriate it to every and all reactions of shame. They tell us that anytime one acts with shame in respect to sexual matters it is because they have hidden lust in their hearts and are not being honest about it....

Unfortunately, this approach is doomed because there are real distinctions between Manichaeism, Jansenism and scrupulosity. The latter is not hatred of the body, but pride of judgment and fear of responsibility. All three things can overlap, but they don’t necessarily. The apologetic gurus of our age, I must presume, do not read souls. They should not pretend to.

Likewise, there are real distinctions between shame of sinful things, shame of holy things and lust dressed up as shame (prudery). They are not the same thing and cannot be treated as the same thing without misrepresenting the faith and misleading souls....

Raising the Bar

On business etiquette.

Some view etiquette as an arbitrary set of “rules” for being nice in society. Yet when looking closely at etiquette, and the action of our executive, we see that etiquette includes an ethical component, a consideration beyond ourselves. Etiquette at its highest level, goes beyond the “rules” to pay attention to others, to acknowledge their needs, and to meet their needs in a considerate way. These actions demonstrate a transcending of Self by acknowledging the value of others and how your actions impact them.

Part I: Piety the Gift

Since it has become popular in some Catholic circles to speak of piety as if it were a disease rather than a gift of the Holy Spirit, I have asked my Byzantine Catholic friend Mary Lanser of Irenikon to write a series of essays about it.

Piety the Gift
by Mary Lanser

Piety is most commonly identified with the externals of religious devotions including personal attitudes of heart and mind expressed in prayer and spiritual writings, and descriptions of, pilgrimages to, and venerations of holy people, holy places or holy things. In this brief four part series we hope to illuminate the foundations of true piety, without which, these external manifestations would be absolutely meaningless.

According to the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas as well, piety is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In that sense it is not a virtue that we can acquire, it is a gift of grace given to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is a gift intended to assist us in quieting the passions and incorporating the virtues in our daily lives.

St. Thomas takes the enumerated list of the gifts, and the description of the spirated nature of the gifts directly from the Old Testament Book of the Prophet Isaiah, 11:2-3. I am including two reliable translations of these passages so you can see that the list in Isaiah appears slightly differently from the seven gifts as they are listed in the Summa Theologica by St. Thomas as: wisdom, knowledge, understanding and counsel, fortitude, piety and fear.

However, the contents of either list, the one in Scripture or the one from St. Thomas, is not different from the other in meaning.

Isaiah 11 (Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition):
1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root. 2 And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness. 3 And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears. 4 But he shall judge the poor with justice, and shall reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: land he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. 5 And justice shall be the girdle of his loins: and faith the girdle of his reins.
Also note that in verses 4 and 5 of Isaiah there is a foreshadowing of the Sermon on the Mount and what we have come to know and revere as the Beatitudes, or the way of the beatitudinal life. There is also distinct and powerful references to justice, which we will come to address, in due course. These elements are crucial in understanding the full import of piety as a spirated virtue [by the enlivening power of the Holy Spirit] in our lives, designed to assist us in becoming more fully one in and with Christ.

As St. Thomas writes:
....Seeing that these gifts are set down in Holy Writ as having been in Christ, according to Isaiah11:2-3 ....the virtues are given simply that we may do good works, but the gifts, in order to conform us to Christ, chiefly with regard to His Passion, for it was then that these gifts shone with the greatest splendor. Yet neither does this appear to be a satisfactory distinction. Because Our Lord Himself wished us to be conformed to Him, chiefly in humility and meekness, according to Mat. 11:29: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart," and in charity, according to Jn. 15:12: "Love one another, as I have loved you."
In the latter part of the text, referencing both Matthew and John the Beloved, one can begin to see the relationship between the gift of piety, or godliness, or fear of the Lord, as it is variously translated, and its fulfillment in living a beatitudinal life. Over the centuries, for the saints and fathers, piety has been an especial type of virtue. Not quite the same type as the virtues which, as we've been taught, can be either infused in us through the Trinity indwelling, or acquired naturally to some degree.

It is revealed in Isaiah that true piety cannot be acquired by human effort in any way, but is by its nature given to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That does not mean that piety is entirely an internal and invisible movement of the Spirit in each person, or that we cannot interact with that gift in very personal and public ways. Piety is made manifest both interiorly and exteriorly.

In a word from Venerable Nilus of Sinai we can see that if piety is truly in operation in a soul, it is inevitable that it becomes apparent to the hearts and eyes and ears of others: “Not he who shows mercy to many is pious, but he who offends no one. Study virtue by word, but preach about it by deed.”~Venerable Nilus of Sinai.

As surely as we think this is a simple counsel to treat our brothers and sisters as we'd like to be treated, we can be equally assured that it is not.

The question remains: What does it mean to “offend no one.” Not what does it mean to us, as in what is the first thing that comes to mind? But what did it mean to Venerable Nilus?

If we are asked or ordered or merely expected to sin, in any fashion or to any degree, must we sin in order to offend no one? If we are expected to behave in such a way that we know or believe will be offensive to God, whether or not it is personally sinful, must we do so in order to meet the Venerable Nilus' criteria that we offend no one?

Of course not! What Venerable Nilus says is that we are not only to seek interiorly to be holy as Christ and the Father are holy, but we are to outwardly sign or preach the Kingdom by being visibly holy in our lives. We are to accomplish this by displaying the very godliness in us that is a gift from God, spirated by the Holy Spirit, first to Christ, and then to us through Baptism into Christ. We accomplish this first and foremost by being obedient to the commandments and to legitimate authority in all things but sin.

It is also clear from this brief counsel that piety is the hearthstone for the fires of humility, for the proud can still show mercy, but it is only the meek and the humble who can empty their own will in deference to the will of another, and it is only the meek and humble of heart who seek never, first and foremost, to offend God. And if one teaches and preaches the truths of the Kingdom then they will not ever be truly offensive to others, for offensive in the sense of the holy fathers means to give scandal or lead others into sin, by thought, word or deed!