Vienna and Europe Saved in the Holy Name of Mary…For a Time
September 12th commemorates the Holy Name of Mary, made sacred by the holiness of the Theotokos, the Mother of God, full of grace. It was Pope Innocent XI – a great and holy reforming Pontiff who resisted the Gallican ambitions of Louis XIV (who did not send any help to Vienna), who cleaned up the Vatican, and who condemned abortion, declaring the fetus to have a soul – yes, it was this same great Pope who instituted this feast in 1684, in thanksgiving to the Blessed Mother for the victory at Vienna. In the rather heady days of the late 1960’s, this memorial was removed in the revision of the liturgical calendar after Vatican II, perhaps in some misguided sense of ecumenical outreach and the paring back of devotion. But it was placed back in by Pope Saint John Paul II in 2002, who had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother – totus tuus! – and knew more than most what was, and is still is, at stake. So thank you for that, Holy Father.
As Bernard of Clairvaux puts it in today’s Office, in his own mellifluous manner:
All of you, who see yourselves amid the tides of the world, tossed by storms and tempests rather than walking on the land, do not turn your eyes away from this shining star, unless you want to be overwhelmed by the hurricane. If temptation storms, or you fall upon the rocks of tribulation, look to the star: call upon Mary! If you are tossed by the waves of pride or ambition, detraction or envy, look to the star, call upon Mary. If anger or avarice or the desires of the flesh dash against the ship of your soul, turn your eyes to Mary. If troubled by the enormity of your crimes, ashamed of your guilty conscience, terrified by dread of the judgement, you begin to sink into the gulf of sadness or the abyss of despair, think of Mary.
This day also marks the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna, the great victory in 1683 of the Christians armies, led by Jan Sobieski, against the Ottoman Turks who were determined to conquer the Austrian city, the gateway to the rest of Europe. Against overwhelming odds, the vastly outnumbered Polish, along with forces from Saxony, Franconia, Swabia, Baden and Bavaria, crushed the Muslims under Kara Mustapha Pasha, sending them fleeing for their lives, breaking the power of the Ottoman empire, which had ravaged Christianity and Christians for centuries. Sobieski paraphrased Caesar after what he saw as his miraculous victory: Veni, vidi, Christus vincit. I came, I saw…and Christ conquered. Christ indeed won the day, saving Europe, the Faith and western civilization, at least until recently. There is a legend that the croissant, based the Islamic ‘crescent’, was invented at Viennese bakeries soon afterward, as a symbol of their deliverance.
The religious significance was not lost on the losers: The attacks on America on 9/11 were, in large part, a centuries-delayed Islamic revenge against the ‘Crusaders’. Those perpetrators died in their own fiery inferno. Kara Mustapha met his own demise and judgement almost as quickly, strangled to death by the Janissaries – kidnapped Christian children raised to be fervent Muslim soldiers – for his ignominious defeat.
They hardly need bother with such dramatic mayhem. Islam is now conquering by untrammeled immigration and birthrate. Europe’s refusal to have children, its population stabilized only due to the thousands of foreigners arriving on its shores weekly, now more or less ensures its own eventual suicide, leaving the once-great entity open to an invasion, if one wants to use that term. Not of a military sort, but cultural and demographic. Peruse the 1975 dystopic novel Camp of the Saints for what the near future may hold, and in many ways the present already does. Birmingham, in the industrial heartland of Britain, to take but one case, is now thirty percent Muslim, who will soon be in the majority.
But today we take hope in the victory of Jan Sobieski, who may well have declared Maria vincit, for the name of Mary is powerful indeed, for, as the wedding at Cana signifies, Christ cannot refuse a request from his mother. So ask away, whatever you will. May the Virgin Mary intercede for us all, when we need her help in our own turbulent times. As she said to Juan Diego a century before Vienna, ‘Am I not your Mother?’. So fear not, and have hope. The victory is Christ’s.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk
(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’… ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→