Posted on 10/12/2017 10:14:27 PM PDT by CMRosary
THIS glorious saint was like a beautiful lily, crowning the ancient branch of the kings of Wessex. The times had progressed since that sixth century, when the pagan Cerdic and other pirate chiefs from the North Sea scattered with ruins the island of saints. Having accomplished their mission of wrath, the Anglo-Saxons became instruments of grace to the land they had conquered. Evangelized by Rome, even as the Britons they had just chastized, they remembered, better than the latter, whence their salvation had come; a spring-tide blossoming of sanctity showed the pleasure God took once more in Albion, for the constant fidelity of the princes and people of the heptarchy towards the See of Peter. In the year of our Lord 800, Egbert, a descendant of Cerdic, had gone on pilgrimage to Rome, when a deputation from the West Saxons offered him the crown, beside the tomb of the Prince of the apostles, at whose feet Charlemagne, at that very time, was restoring the empire. As Egbert united under one scepter the power of the seven kingdoms, so Saint Edward, his last descendant, represents today in his own person the glorious holiness of them all.
Nephew to St. Edward the martyr, our holy king is known to God and man by the beautiful title of the Confessor. The Church, in her account of his life, sets forth more particularly the virtues which won him so glorious an appellation; but we must remember moreover that his reign of twenty-four years was one of the happiest England has ever known. Alfred the Great had no more illustrious imitator. The Danes, so long masters, now entirely subjugated within the kingdom, and without, held at bay by the noble attitude of the prince; Macbeth, the usurper of the Scotch throne, vanquished in a campaign that Shakespeare has immortalized; St. Edward’s Laws, which remain to this day the basis of the British constitution; the saint’s munificence towards all noble enterprises, while at the same time he diminished the taxes: all this proves with sufficient clearness, that the sweetness of virtue, which made him the intimate friend of St. John the beloved disciple, is not incompatible with the greatness of a monarch.
Thou representest on the sacred cycle the nation which Gregory the Great foresaw would rival the angels; so many holy kings, illustrious virgins, grand bishops, and great monks, who were its glory, now form thy brilliant court. Where are now the unwise in whose sight thou and thy race seemed to die? History must be judged in the light of heaven. While thou and thine reign there eternally, judging nations and ruling over peoples; the dynasties of thy successors on earth, ever jealous of the Church, and long wandering in schism and heresy, have become extinct one after another, sterilized by God’s wrath, and having none but that vain renown whereof no trace is found in the book of life. How much more noble and more durable, O Edward, were the fruits of thy holy virginity! Teach us to look upon the present world as a preparation for another, an everlasting world; and to value human events by their eternal results. Our admiring worship seeks and finds thee in thy royal abbey of Westminster; and we love to contemplate, by anticipation, thy glorious resurrection on the day of judgment, when all around thee so many false grandeurs will acknowledge their shame and their nothingness. Bless us, prostrate in spirit or in reality beside thy tomb, where heresy, fearful of the result, would fain forbid our prayer. Offer to God the supplications rising today from all parts of the world, for the wandering sheep, whom the Shepherd’s voice is now so earnestly calling back to the one fold!
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It reads like something the Soviets wrote about Stalin.
Are you criticizing Gueranger, or the Breviary?
Are you Catholic?
For later
I recently read several history books about the period. One about the Norman conquest, another about British history generally from the Romans to the Tudors. Also, have read Churchill’s Birth of Britain. I like to sift through lots of sources. The Confessor was romanticized at some point, but it seems that the truth about him is not so prosaic. Having been a student in the past of the Soviet Union, this description of him reminded me of nothing so much as a biography of Stalin written by the Kremlin. It was just so over the top.
I am not criticizing anyone. They are products of their time. But this kind of writing is how history becomes myth, and then the truth is obscured.
And you know what opinions are like, right?
“And you know what opinions are like, right?”
No matter what they’re like, when they’re stupid, they shouldn’t be revealed. Learn from that.
Sadly, you have no way to know which one you are.
“Sadly, you have no way to know which one you are.”
Sure there is. The fact that you don’t know that fact tells us which one you are.
“You are proving my point.”
No, actually you’re proving mine.
“I know and you dont and debate with the stupid is meaningless.”
No, you give no evidence of knowing anything.
“A recent biography about Stalin doesnt have anything to do with the comparison I was making.”
Actually it does. But you can’t tell how.
“Someone named Vladimir should be better at recognizing pure propaganda, whether about a dictator or a king.”
Not a king, a saint. And it’s not propaganda. He was a saint before he was a king. You apparently have no idea of what you’re talking about.
“But then, you are stupid, so maybe not.”
You’re clearly violating the board rules. That seems to be a sign of desperation on your part.
“Someone had to be going along with the Soviet tyrants for 73 years, after all.”
People like you apparently.
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