candor, Mt 11:20-24, The Sixteen Blessed Teresian Martyrs of Compiègne, Place de la Nation Paris France
Good Day Bloggers!
Wishing everyone a Blessed Week!
P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Something Happens). It has a remarkable way of producing solace, peace, patience and tranquility and of course resolution...God's always available 24/7..
We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have
flaws but we also all have the gift knowledge and free will as well,
make the most of it. Life on earth is a stepping to our eternal home in
Heaven. Its your choice whether to rise towards eternal light or lost to
eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and
survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes
from this earth to Heaven is our Soul, our Spirit...it's God's perpetual
gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...
"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012
Today's Word: candor can·dor [n. kan-der]
Origin: 1350–1400 (for sense “extreme whiteness”); Middle English < Latin: radiance
noun
1.the state or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression; candidness: The candor of the speech impressed the audience.
2.freedom from bias; fairness; impartiality: to consider an issue with candor.
3.Obsolete . kindliness.
4.Obsolete . purity.
Today's Gospel Reading - Matthew 11,20-24
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| PANNINI, Giovanni Paolo Expulsion from the Temple c. 1724 Oil on canvas, 74 x 99 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
Matthew 11,20-24
Jesus began to reproach the towns in which most of his miracles had been worked, because they refused to repent. 'Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Still, I tell you that it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on Judgement Day than for you.And as for you, Capernaum, did you want to be raised as high as heaven? You shall be flung down to hell. For if the miracles done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have been standing yet. Still, I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on Judgement Day than for you.'
~ Reflection
• The Discourse of the Mission occupies charter 10. Chapters 11 and 12 describe the Mission which Jesus carried out and how he did it. The two chapters mention how the people adhered to him, doubted the evangelizing action of Jesus, or rejected it. John the Baptist, who looked at Jesus with the eyes of the past, does not succeed in understanding him (Mt 11, 1-15). The people, who looked at Jesus out of interest, were not capable to understand him (Mt 11, 16-19). The great cities around the lake, which listened to the preaching of Jesus and saw his miracles, did not want to open themselves up to his message (this is the text of today’s Gospel) (Mt 11, 20-24). The wise and the doctors, who appreciated everything according to their own science, were not capable to understand the preaching of Jesus (Mt 11, 25). The Pharisees, who trusted only in the observance of the law, criticized Jesus (Mt 12, 1-8) and decided to kill him (Mt 12, 9-14). They said that Jesus acted in the name of Beelzebul (Mt 12, 22-37). They wanted a proof in order to be able to believe in him (Mt 12, 38-45). Not even his relatives supported him (Mt 12, 46-50). Only the little ones and the simple people understood and accepted the Good News of the Kingdom (Mt 11, 25-30). They followed him (Mt 12, 15-16) and saw in him the Servant announced by Isaiah (Mt 12, 17-21).• This way of describing the missionary activity of Jesus was a clear warning for the disciples who together with Jesus walked through Galilee. They could not expect a reward or praise for the fact of being missionaries of Jesus. This warning is also valid for us who today read and meditate on this discourse of the Mission, because the Gospels were written for all times. They invite us to confront the attitude that we have with Jesus with the attitude of the persons who appear in the Gospel and to ask ourselves if we are like John the Baptist (Mt 11, 1-15), like the people who were interested (Mt 11, 16-19), like the unbelieving cities (Mt 11, 20-24), like the doctors who thought they knew everything and understood nothing (Mt 11, 25), like the Pharisees who only knew how to criticize (Mt 12, 1-45) or like the simple people who went seeking for Jesus (Mt 12. 15) and that, with their wisdom, knew how to understand and accept the message of the Kingdom (Mt 11, 25-30).
• Matthew 11, 20: The word against the cities which did not receive him. The space in which Jesus moves during those three years of his missionary life was small; only a few square kilometres along the Sea of Galilee around the cities of Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin. Only that! So it was in this very reduced space where Jesus made the majority of his discourses and worked his miracles. He came to save the whole of humanity, and almost did not get out of the limited space of his land. Tragically, Jesus has to become aware that the people of those cities did not want to accept the message of the Kingdom and were not converted. The cities become more rigid in their beliefs, traditions and customs and do not accept the invitation of Jesus to change life.
• Matthew 11, 21-24: Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum are worse than Tyre and Sidon. In the past, Tyre and Sidon, inflexible enemies of Israel, ill treated the People of God. Because of this they were cursed by the prophets. (Is 23, 1; Jr 25, 22; 47, 4; Ex 26, 3; 27, 2; 28, 2; Jl 4, 4; Am 1, 10). And now Jesus says that these cities, symbols of all evil, would have already been converted if in them had been worked all the miracles which were worked in Chorazin and Bethsaida. The city of Sodom, the symbol of the worse perversion, was destroyed by the anger of God (Gn 18, 16 to 19, 29). And now Jesus says that Sodom would exist up until now, because it would have been converted if it had seen the miracles that Jesus worked in Capernaum. Today we still live this same paradox. Many of us, who are Catholics since we were children, have many solid and firm convictions, so much so that nobody is capable of converting us. And in some places, Christianity, instead of being a source of change and of conversion, becomes the refuge of the most reactionary forces of the politics of the country.
~ Personal questions
• How do I place myself before the Good News of Jesus: like John the Baptist, like the interested people, like the doctors, like the Pharisees or like the simple and poor people?
• Do my city, my country deserve the warning of Jesus against Capernaum, Chorazion and Bethsaida?
• Do my city, my country deserve the warning of Jesus against Capernaum, Chorazion and Bethsaida?
Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.
Feast Day: July 17
Died: 1794
The Martyrs of Compiègne were the sixteen members of the Carmel of Compiègne, France: eleven Discalced Carmelite nuns, three lay sisters, and two externs (tertiaries of the Order, who would handle the community's needs outside the monastery). During the French Revolution, they refused to obey the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the Revolutionary government, which mandated the suppression of their monastery.
Consequently, they were arrested in June 1794, during the Reign of Terror. They were initially imprisoned in Cambrai, along with a community of English Benedictine nuns, who had established a monastery for women of their nation there, since monastic life had been banned in England since the Reign of Henry VIII. Learning that the Carmelites were daily offering themselves as victims to God for the restoration of peace to France and the Church, the Benedictines regarded them as saintly.
The Carmelite community was transported to Paris, where they were condemned as a group as traitors and sentenced to death. They were sent to the guillotine on 17 July 1794. They were notable in the manner of their deaths, as, at the foot of the scaffold, the community jointly renewed their vows and began to chant the Veni Creator Spiritus, the hymn sung at the ceremony for the profession of vows. They continued their singing as, one by one, they mounted the scaffold to meet their death. The novice of the community, Sister Constance, was the first to die, then the lay Sisters and externs, and so on, ending with the prioress, Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, O.C.D.
When the Reign of Terror ended only days after their martyrdom, the English nuns credited the Carmelites with stopping the Revolution's bloodbath and with saving their own community from annihilation. The nuns of Cambrai preserved with devotion, as the holy relics of martyrs, the secular clothes the Carmelites had been required to wear before their arrest, and which the jailer forced on the English nuns after the Carmelites had been killed. (The Benedictines were still wearing them when, on 2 May 1795, they were at last allowed to return to their homeland, where they became the community of Stanbrook Abbey.)
The martyrs are commemorated on that date in the Calendar of Saints of the Carmelite Order.
A modern writer recounts the impact of their deaths:
In 1931, the German convert, Gertrud von Le Fort, published a novella which was inspired by the events of their deaths, Die Letzte am Schafott (English: The Last One at the Scaffold). This later inspired a libretto written by the French Catholic writer, Georges Bernanos. The English translation of the novella was published in 1933 under the title Song at the Scaffold.
The martyrs consisted of fourteen nuns and lay sisters (O.C.D.), and two externs:
Choir Nuns
The Place de la Nation (formerly the place du Trône, then the place du Trône-Renversé) is a square in Paris, on the border of the 11th and 12th arrondissements. It was renamed the Place de la Nation at the national festivities of 14 July 1880 and is served by the Paris Metro station Nation.
The miracles proved during the process of beatification were:
References: Courtesy of the Catholic Online, catholic.org and Courtesy of Wikipedia, wikipedia.org
Featured Items Panel from Litany Lane
The Place de la Nation (formerly the place du Trône, then the place du Trône-Renversé) is a square in Paris, on the border of the 11th and 12th arrondissements. It was renamed the Place de la Nation at the national festivities of 14 July 1880 and is served by the Paris Metro station Nation.
The city bears traces of the mur des Fermiers généraux
built well beyond the buildings of Paris in a campaign to encircle
houses, gardens and monasteries. Its construction left a vast grassy
space of vines and market gardens as far as the medieval city wall and
the walls of the gardens of the old village of Picpus, filled with major
convents, schools and retreats. A throne was erected in this space on
26 July 1660 for the solemn arrival of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain following their marriage in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. This gave the square its original name of place du Trône.
Originally the square housed two pavilions and two columns of the barrière du Trône designed by Claude Nicolas Ledoux and built for the barrier of octroi (Mur des Fermiers généraux) which surrounded the entrance to the cours de Vincennes. The columns are surmounted by statues of kings Philip II and Louis IX.
During the Revolution, the square was renamed place du Trône-Renversé
after 10 August 1792. A guillotine was built n the southern half of the
square, near the pavilion of law built by Ledoux. Those guillotined
here are buried at cimetière de Picpus and include:
The central monument, "The Triumph of the Republic", is a bronze sculpture created by Aimé-Jules Dalou. It was erected to mark the centenary of the French Revolution, at first in plaster in 1889 and then in bronze in 1899. It represents a personification of the Republic, and looks towards place de la Bastille. The figure stands on a globe in a chariot pulled by lions and surrounded by various symbolic figures.
On 22 June 1963, the magazine Salut les copains organised a concert at Place de la Nation, featuring singers such as Johnny Hallyday, Richard Anthony, Eddy Mitchell and Frank Alamo. It attracted over 150,000 young people. The headline of the following day's issue of the journal Paris-Presse read, "Salut les voyous !". The photographer Jean-Marie Périer,
who was a friend to many of the performers, photographed the concert.
The Place de la Nation continued to be the location of the foire du Trône before the pelouse de Reuilly.
References: Courtesy of Wikipedia, wikipedia.org
Featured Items Of the Day from Litany Lane
Saint of the Day: The Sixteen Blessed Teresian Martyrs of Compiègne
Died: 1794
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| Sixteen Teresian Martyrs of Compiègne |
Sixteen Carmelites caught up in the French Revolution and martyred. When the revolution started in 1789, a group of twenty-one discalced
Carmelites lived in a monastery in Compiegne France, founded in 1641.
The monastery was ordered closed in 1790 by the Revolutionary
government, and the nuns were disbanded. Sixteen of the nuns were accused of living in a religious community in 1794. They were arrested on June 22 and imprisoned in a Visitation convent in Compiegne There they openly resumed their religious life. On July 12, 1794, the Carmelites were taken to Paris and five days later were sentenced to death. They went to the guillotine singing the Salve Regina. They were beatified
in 1906 by Pope St. Pius X. The Carmelites were: Marie Claude Brard;
Madeleine Brideau, the subprior; Maire Croissy, grandniece of Colbert
Marie Dufour; Marie Hanisset; Marie Meunier, a novice; Rose de Neufville
Annette Pebras; Anne Piedcourt: Madeleine Lidoine, the prioress;
Angelique Roussel; Catherine Soiron and Therese Soiron, both extern
sisters, natives of Compiegne and blood sisters: Anne Mary Thouret; Marie Trezelle; and Eliza beth Verolot. The martyrdom of the nuns was immortalized by the composer Francois Poulenc in his famous opera Dialogues des Carmelites.
The Martyrs of Compiègne were the sixteen members of the Carmel of Compiègne, France: eleven Discalced Carmelite nuns, three lay sisters, and two externs (tertiaries of the Order, who would handle the community's needs outside the monastery). During the French Revolution, they refused to obey the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the Revolutionary government, which mandated the suppression of their monastery.
Consequently, they were arrested in June 1794, during the Reign of Terror. They were initially imprisoned in Cambrai, along with a community of English Benedictine nuns, who had established a monastery for women of their nation there, since monastic life had been banned in England since the Reign of Henry VIII. Learning that the Carmelites were daily offering themselves as victims to God for the restoration of peace to France and the Church, the Benedictines regarded them as saintly.
The Carmelite community was transported to Paris, where they were condemned as a group as traitors and sentenced to death. They were sent to the guillotine on 17 July 1794. They were notable in the manner of their deaths, as, at the foot of the scaffold, the community jointly renewed their vows and began to chant the Veni Creator Spiritus, the hymn sung at the ceremony for the profession of vows. They continued their singing as, one by one, they mounted the scaffold to meet their death. The novice of the community, Sister Constance, was the first to die, then the lay Sisters and externs, and so on, ending with the prioress, Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, O.C.D.
When the Reign of Terror ended only days after their martyrdom, the English nuns credited the Carmelites with stopping the Revolution's bloodbath and with saving their own community from annihilation. The nuns of Cambrai preserved with devotion, as the holy relics of martyrs, the secular clothes the Carmelites had been required to wear before their arrest, and which the jailer forced on the English nuns after the Carmelites had been killed. (The Benedictines were still wearing them when, on 2 May 1795, they were at last allowed to return to their homeland, where they became the community of Stanbrook Abbey.)
The martyrs are commemorated on that date in the Calendar of Saints of the Carmelite Order.
Veneration
A modern writer recounts the impact of their deaths:On 17 July 1794, in the closing days of the Reign of Terror led by Robespierre, sixteen Carmelite nuns of the Catholic Church were guillotined at the Barrière de Vincennes (nowadays Place de la Nation) in Paris. They were buried in a common grave at the Picpus Cemetery, where a single cross today marks the remains of 1,306 victims of the guillotine.
A mere handful of the French Revolution's victims, they have commanded the attention of historians, hagiographers, authors, playwrights, composers, and librettists for two hundred years. In the course of the 20th century, the Martyrs of Compiègne have been the subject of a massive scholarly history, a German novella, a French play, a film, and Francis Poulenc's opera Dialogues of the Carmelites. In 1902, Pope Leo XIII declared the nuns Venerable, the first step toward canonization. They were later beatified by Pius X in May 1906: Carmelites celebrate the memory of the prioress, Blessed Teresa of St. Augustine (Lidoine), and her fifteen companions on 17 July, and Catholics may adopt them as patrons. The bicentenary of their death was observed in 1994; many are petitioning for their canonization.
Legacy in the arts
In 1931, the German convert, Gertrud von Le Fort, published a novella which was inspired by the events of their deaths, Die Letzte am Schafott (English: The Last One at the Scaffold). This later inspired a libretto written by the French Catholic writer, Georges Bernanos. The English translation of the novella was published in 1933 under the title Song at the Scaffold.
Francis Poulenc's 1957 opera Dialogues of the Carmelites
is based on the story of the Martyrs, as adapted by Bernanos.
List of the Martyrs
Guillotined at the Place du Trône Renversé (now called Place de la Nation), Paris, 17 July, 1794. They are the first sufferers under the French Revolution on whom the Holy See has passed judgment, and were solemnly beatified 27 May, 1906. Before their execution they knelt and chanted the "Veni Creator", as at a profession, after which they all renewed aloud their baptismal and religious vows. The novice was executed first and the prioress last. Absolute silence prevailed the whole time that the executions were proceeding. The heads and bodies of the martyrs were interred in a deep sand-pit about thirty feet square in a cemetery at Picpus. As this sand-pit was the receptacle of the bodies of 1298 victims of the Revolution, there seems to be no hope of their relics being recovered.The martyrs consisted of fourteen nuns and lay sisters (O.C.D.), and two externs:
Choir Nuns
- Mother Teresa of St. Augustine, prioress (Madeleine-Claudine Ledoine) b. 1752
- Mother St. Louis, sub-prioress (Marie-Anne [or Antoinett] Brideau) b. 1752
- Mother Henriette of Jesus, ex-prioress (Marie-Françoise Gabrielle de Croissy) b. 1745
- Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified (Marie-Anne Piedcourt) b. 1715
- Sister Charlotte of the Resurrection, ex-sub-prioress and sacristan (Anne-Marie-Madeleine Thouret) b. 1715
- Sister Euphrasia of the Immaculate Conception (Marie-Claude Cyprienne) b. 1736
- Sister Teresa of the Sacred Heart of Mary (Marie-Antoniette Hanisset) b. 1740
- Sister Julie Louise of Jesus, widow (Rose-Chrétien de la Neuville) b. 1741
- Sister Teresa of St. Ignatius (Marie-Gabrielle Trézel) b. 1743
- Sister Mary-Henrietta of Providence (Anne Petras) b. 1760
- Sister Constance, novice (Marie-Geneviève Meunier) b. 1765
- Sister St. Martha (Marie Dufour) b. 1742
- Sister Mary of the Holy Spirit (Angélique Roussel) b. 1742
- Sister St. Francis Xavier (Julie Vérolot) b. 1764
- Catherine Soiron b. 1742
- Thérèse Soiron b. 1748
The Place de la Nation (formerly the place du Trône, then the place du Trône-Renversé) is a square in Paris, on the border of the 11th and 12th arrondissements. It was renamed the Place de la Nation at the national festivities of 14 July 1880 and is served by the Paris Metro station Nation.
The Miracles
The miracles proved during the process of beatification were: - The cure of Sister Clare of St. Joseph, a Carmelite lay sister of New Orleans, when on the point of death from cancer, in June, 1897;
- The cure of the Abbé Roussarie, of the seminary at Brive, when at the point of death, 7 March, 1897;
- The cure of Sister St. Martha of St. Joseph, a Carmelite lay Sister of Vans, of tuberculosis and an abcess in the right leg, 1 Dec., 1897;
- The cure of Sister St. Michael, a Franciscan of Montmorillon, 9 April, 1898.
References: Courtesy of the Catholic Online, catholic.org and Courtesy of Wikipedia, wikipedia.org
- Newkirk, Terrye, O.C.D.S. (2000). The Mantle of Elijah: The Martyrs of Compiègne as Prophets of the Modern Age. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications. ISBN 0-935216-51-0. http://www.ourgardenofcarmel.org/martyrs.html.
- "The Sixteen Blessed Teresian Martyrs of Compiègne". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
Today's Snippet: Place de la Nation, Paris, France
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| Place de la Nation, Paris France 48° 50' 56.90" N, 2° 23' 51.70" E |
Ancien Regime
The city bears traces of the mur des Fermiers généraux
built well beyond the buildings of Paris in a campaign to encircle
houses, gardens and monasteries. Its construction left a vast grassy
space of vines and market gardens as far as the medieval city wall and
the walls of the gardens of the old village of Picpus, filled with major
convents, schools and retreats. A throne was erected in this space on
26 July 1660 for the solemn arrival of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Spain following their marriage in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. This gave the square its original name of place du Trône.Originally the square housed two pavilions and two columns of the barrière du Trône designed by Claude Nicolas Ledoux and built for the barrier of octroi (Mur des Fermiers généraux) which surrounded the entrance to the cours de Vincennes. The columns are surmounted by statues of kings Philip II and Louis IX.
French Revolution
During the Revolution, the square was renamed place du Trône-Renversé
after 10 August 1792. A guillotine was built n the southern half of the
square, near the pavilion of law built by Ledoux. Those guillotined
here are buried at cimetière de Picpus and include:- André-Marie Chénier, 25 July 1794.
- Cécile Renault, Henri Admirat and Jean-Baptiste Michonis, 17 June 1794.
- Josse-François-Joseph Benaut, composer, 13 July 1794.
- The Tersian Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelite nuns, 17 July 1794
19th century
The central monument, "The Triumph of the Republic", is a bronze sculpture created by Aimé-Jules Dalou. It was erected to mark the centenary of the French Revolution, at first in plaster in 1889 and then in bronze in 1899. It represents a personification of the Republic, and looks towards place de la Bastille. The figure stands on a globe in a chariot pulled by lions and surrounded by various symbolic figures.
20th century
On 22 June 1963, the magazine Salut les copains organised a concert at Place de la Nation, featuring singers such as Johnny Hallyday, Richard Anthony, Eddy Mitchell and Frank Alamo. It attracted over 150,000 young people. The headline of the following day's issue of the journal Paris-Presse read, "Salut les voyous !". The photographer Jean-Marie Périer,
who was a friend to many of the performers, photographed the concert.
The Place de la Nation continued to be the location of the foire du Trône before the pelouse de Reuilly.References: Courtesy of Wikipedia, wikipedia.org