French Revolution martyr beatified [Catholic Caucus]

Father Pierre-Adrien Toulorge (1757-93), a Norbertine priest martyred during the French Revolution, was beatified on April 29 at the cathedral in Coutances, France. Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided at the beatification, which was attended by 1,500 faithful and hundreds of priests and religious.

When Father Toulorge was sentenced to death, a nun who was arrested with him wept, prompting this rebuke from the priest:

Madame, the tears you are shedding are unworthy of you and me. What would worldly people say if they knew that having renounced the world, we found it difficult to leave it? If we are loathe to die, we will give the children of this century a bad example, and perhaps your discouragement will close the door of salvation for many souls who might find themselves in the same situation. Let us teach them by our constancy what they must do. Let us show that faith is victorious over torture, and open a path to heaven amidst the final efforts of hell.

Last August I stood quietly before the grave of General Lafayette in Paris and next to the mass grave of these unbelievably couragous nuns.

On July 17, 1794, sixteen Carmelites nuns of Compiègne were guillotined in Paris, convicted of crimes against the state by the tribunal of the French Revolution Since the prosecutor accused the Carmelites of being fanatics and counter-revolutionaries, she asked him to explain the meaning of those words. The irritated judge vomited a torrent of offenses against her, and then said: “It is your attachment to your Religion and the King.”

Hearing these words, she replied, “I thank you for the explanation.” Then, addressing her companion Carmelites, she said: “My dear Mother and my Sisters, we must rejoice and give thanks to God for we die for our Religion, our Faith, and for being members of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.”

The Sisters were chanting the Veni Creator in chorus and, one by one, they walked up the steps to the scaffold to be guillotined. She was the last one before the Prioress to mount the scaffold to die. To the end, she encouraged her Sisters to persevere. When a charitable person offered a glass of water to one of the Sisters, Mother Henriette told her: “In Heaven, my Sister, in Heaven we will soon have water aplenty to drink.”

"In light of thoughts regarding the near future of this country, I thought you might wish to know of this. What holy faith! "

Boy! You and I are in the same page. Before I was going to click I was going to point that out and thank you. So to prepares us for the future.

Please Lord help and guide us! All the saints pray for us! Amen!

Veni Creator
Come, O Creator Spirit blest! And in our souls take up Thy rest; Come with Thy grace and heavenly aid, To fill the hearts which Thou hast made. Great Paraclete! To Thee we cry, O highest gift of God most high! O font of life! O fire of love! And sweet anointing from above.

Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts art known, The finger of God’s hand we own; The promise of the Father, Thou! Who dost the tongue with power endow.

Kindle our senses from above, And make our hearts overflow with love; With patience firm and virtue high The weakness of our flesh supply.

Far from us drive the foe we dread, And grant us Thy true peace instead; So shall we not, with Thee for guide, Turn from the path of life aside.

Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow The Father and the Son to know, And Thee, through endless times confessed, Of both, the eternal Spirit blest.

All glory while the ages run Be to the Father and the Son Who rose from death; the same to Thee, O Holy Ghost, eternally. Amen.

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