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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} A Heart for Europe the lives of Emperor Charles and Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary by Joanna Bogle About. Married saints in the Church are far from numerous, and even fewer are venerated for what we might call a “normal” married life. Lists of married saints from the early Church, for example, feature primarily young women martyred, or husband and wife individually or both living chastely or entering a religious community. Attention to more kinds of married saints has increased more recently. The list below features a sample of married saints and holy men and women that will, hopefully, serve as models of sanctity. Saints. Blessed Karl and Servant of God Zita Habsburg. Bogle, J., and J. Bogle. A Heart for Europe: The Lives of Emperor Charles and Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary. Gracewing Books. Fowler Wright, 1990. https://books.google.com/books?id=L59n8YY3gy8C. Saints Louis and Zelie Martin. “Saints Louis and Zelie Martin.” Society of the Little Flower - US. Accessed August 3, 2019. https://www.littleflower.org/therese/life-story/her- parents/. Saints Henry II and Cunigunde of Luxembourg. Saints Stephen and Giselle of Hungary. Ott, Michael. “St. Stephen.” In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14287a.htm. St. Thomas More. Huddleston, Gilbert. “St. Thomas More.” In Catholic Encylopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14689c.htm. Saint Adelaide. Saint Matilda. Prominent married Catholic men and women. Ludwig Windthorst. Anderson, M.L. Windthorst: A Political Biography. Clarendon Press, 1981. Neill, T.P. They Lived the Faith: Great Lay Leaders of Modern Times. Literary Licensing, LLC, 2012. G. K. and Frances Chesterton. Brown, N.C., and D. Ahlquist. The Woman Who Was Chesterton. ACS Books. ACS Books, 2015. Alice Thomas Ellis. Ellis, Alice Thomas. Home Life. Royal National Institute of the Blind, 2004. Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand. Hildebrand, D. von, A. von Hildebrand, and P. Kreeft. The Art of Living. Hildebrand Project, 2017. Assorted. O’Malley, V.J. Saintly Companions: A Cross-Reference of Sainted Relationships. Alba House, 1995. Neill, T.P. They Lived the Faith: Great Lay Leaders of Modern Times. Literary Licensing, LLC, 2012. Burton, Doris. Great Catholic Mothers of Yesterday and To-Day. London: Paternoster, 1951. Ferdinand Holböck, S.T.D. Married Saints and Blesseds: Through the Centuries. Ignatius Press, 2017. https://books.google.com/books? id=1HEuDwAAQBAJ. Ford, David C., Mary S. Ford, and Kallistos. Marriage as a Path to Holiness : Lives of Married Saints. 2013. The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Zita of Austria-Hungary, 1892-1989. 1892-1989. Gordon Brook-Shepherd. Harper Collins. 20.00[pounds]. Anyone who had the privilege of attending the funeral of Empress Zita in Vienna in 1989 could not help but be aware of the irony of history. Slowly through the rain swept streets of Vienna came a procession of village bands, middle-aged men dressed in uniforms of a lost world, women in the colourful (and expensive) dress of Tyrolean peasants and a vast swarm of clergy. Behind it came the huge hearse carrying a tiny coffin: the Habsburg funeral wagon had been brought from the carriage museum at the Schonbrunn to carry the last reigning Habsburg to her rest. The tens of thousands of mourners in the narrow streets of the old city, people from every land of the old Empire, took up the words of the noble Imperial anthem written by Haydn. Many Austrians looked slightly ashamed as the cortege passed -- ashamed not only at the long exile imposed on their last Empress but at the sight of her eldest son, Archduke Otto, walking with such dignity behind his mother. Here was one of the most distinguished men in Europe allowed but a brief role in his native land while the head of the Austrian Republic hid himself in a comer of the old Imperial palace, unable to visit any respectable nation. Seven decades before -- a brief period in the seven hundred year history of the Habsburg dynasty -- the young and beautiful Empress Zita and her young son had walked with her husband, Emperor Karl, behind the same funeral car as the venerable Franz Joseph was carried to his well deserved rest. Perhaps no other monarch in history ever ascended a throne with more problems than Emperor Karl did in 1916. For the next two years he battled to save his Empire and indeed Europe itself from destruction. As a deeply religious man Kart was anxious to end the war, to make territorial sacrifices if necessary and to transform the Empire into a commonwealth. He could not overcome the opposition of his ally, Germany, his own foreign minister and the intrigues of certain Western politicians. Throughout these two tense years, Karl had the constant support of his wife. Indeed the negotiations were carried on by her brothers, who were fighting on the Allied side. At times this sounds like a fairy tale with four young royal champions trying to slay the dragon of war. Yet, unlike a fable, this story ended tragically. It is a curious feature of European history that revolutions require a Queen to be made into a devil figure. Just as Henriette Maria, Marie Antoinette, Empresses Eugenie and the Tsarina Alexandra were erected into monsters by rabid revolutionaries, so Empress Zita was portrayed as the |Italian intriguer', a spy from Austria's most hated enemy. When the Habsburg Empire collapsed, the Imperial family were driven into exile. Throughout this period and in the two mishandled attempts at restoration, it was Zita who supported her ill husband. After his early death in 1922, it was she who upheld the monarchist cause. She ensured that her son became the best educated Habsburg in history and a man who has not frittered his life away as an embittered |pretender' but has instead taken up an important role in the European Parliament. Gordon Brook-Shepherd has long been the most influential English historian of recent Austrian history. For his superb biography of Empress Zita, he was given unrestricted access to Habsburg family archives as well as the assistance of Otto von Habsburg and other members of the family. Mr. Brook-Shepherd had already had the help of the Empress herself when he wrote his distinguished biography of Emperor Karl many years ago. He has unearthed yet more information for this biography that throws new light on many aspects of European history for almost this entire century. Even as a virtually penniless exile in North America, the Empress was consulted by Churchill, Roosevelt, and Mountbatten about the future of Europe after the defeat of Hitler, a man who detested all Habsburgs. Her main concern, as she told President Roosevelt, was to protect |my peoples' from communism. Mr. Brook-Shepherd has provided a worthy memorial to one of the most tragic and noble figures of our century. The story of the last Austrian Emperor and his consort is attracting increasing attention. With the break-up of that absurd creation Yugoslavia -- a state born of official terrorism in 1914 -- and the encouraging if slow return towards the concept of Central Europe, historians and even journalists are looking with sympathy at the last days of Austria-Hungary. Joanna and James Bogle have written a warm tribute to Emperor Karl and Empress Zita which serves as a good introduction to the life of Austria-Hungary's last Emperor and Empress. This account emphasises their deep religious devotion and appears at a time when the Emperor is being considered for canonisation. This book makes no claim to the years of scholarship of Mr. Brook-Shepherd, but it would provide a well-written introduction to the subject. Indeed, it benefits from Mr. Brook-Shepherd's generous help. Only a biographer as devoted to his subject and as sure of his mastery of it as Mr. Brook-Shepherd would be so generous to other writers. Prayer and simplicity in the life of Emperor Franz Josef. Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary at age 35, 1865. Franz Josef was an institution: millions of his subjects had never known any other monarch and he was an unchanging face on the European scene. His own way of living and working exemplified a notion of order and a commitment to the self-discipline and moral dedication on which he sought to base his rule. Stained glass window of Emperor Franz Josef I. He rose every day before 4am, and after washing and shaving knelt to pray at his prie-dieu before a crucifix. Morning and night prayers were a fixed part of his routine which dated back to his earliest childhood and his mother’s teaching. He lived in two rooms in his vast palace, using others only for official occasions, keeping all his papers and personal items neat and tidy. Emperor Franz Josef I with Count István Tisza a Hungarian politician. After a light breakfast he worked hour after hour at his desk, reading and signing papers, silently pouring over documents relating to every aspect of the internal and external state of the nations he ruled. When the rest of Vienna rose to a new day he had already been laboring for several hours: if he were ever asked about this he would no doubt have simply said that such a state of affairs was natural and right for a monarch…. Franz Joseph I of Austria, emperor of Austria-Hungary, in 1885. James and Joanna Bogle, A Heart for Europe: The Lives of Emperor Charles and Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary (Leominster, Herefordshire, U.K.: Gracewing, 1993), p.