Posted on 10/06/2004 7:49:18 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
Never forget.
Great point.
Lepanto was a military victory-but based on prayer. Without God, our military exploits will be fruitless.
Similarly if we wish to be rid of this modern Islamic scourge which assails us, we will need God's help. It won't be forthcoming while we continue to butcher His unborn children.
If anyone thinks we can stand before God and beg Him to free us from the threat of Islamic violence, while our own hands are dripping with blood, think again.
Thanks for posting those links!
**But the enemy has not forgotten history. He remembers it all too well, and he is still deadly serious about his religion. His goal over the years has not changed in the slightest, and he is very patient. The enemy within is now smiling, just biding his time.**
Is history repeating itself.
**At dawn, on October 7, 1571, as recorded in the Vatican Archives, Pope Pius V, accompanied by a group of the faithful, entered the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to pray the Rosary and ask Our Lady to intercede for a Catholic victory. The prayers continued in Rome as the Catholic and Moslem fleets battled far away in the Gulf of Lepanto.**
Most important part of this entire story.
Pray the Rosary today!
At dawn, on October 7, 1571, as recorded in the Vatican Archives, Pope Pius V, accompanied by a group of the faithful, entered the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to pray the Rosary and ask Our Lady to intercede for a Catholic victory."
Lepanto certainly was a great victory, but all the Orthodox East save for much of Russia remained under the heel of the Mohammaden Turks. It wasn't until March 25, 1821 when my ancestors rose up against the Turks, that the real death knell of the Ottoman Empire was sounded.
Interestingly (and tellingly!), it was Archbishop Germanos, at the Agia Lavras monastery in the northern Peloponnesus who, on March 25th, 1821 the Orthodox Feast of the Annunciation, called the Greeks to Holy War against the Turks. He gave them a banner of a white Cross, representing Christ on a sky blue backround representing the Holy Theotokos. the Mother of God, under which to fight. My ancestors added the words "NIKH H THANATOS, Victory or Death to the battle banners. The Archbishop placed all the fighters and the Greek people under the protection of the Theotokos. To this day, in Greek minds, freedom from Mohammaden oppression and the intercessions of the Mother of God are intertwined. Your recommendation to pray to Panagia during this time of war with Islam is right on the money.
"It is fitting and right to call you blessed, O Theotokos: you are ever-blessed and all-blameless and the Mother of our God. Higher in honor than the Cherubim and more glorious without compare than the Seraphim, you gave birth to God the Word in virginity. You are truly Mother of God : you do we exalt."
Byzantine Daily Worship
Beautiful icon and beautiful prayer from the Byzantine Daily Worship!!
If I recall correctly there is a Byzantine Rite version of the Hail Mary that goes something like this:
Hail, Mother of God, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb. For thou hast born Christ, the Savior and Deliverer of our souls.
Excuse my ignorance, but I thought the Moslems had already taken these areas centuries earlier?
No thanks.
Yeah, that is correct. The author was summing up Muslim conquests until 1571.
Yes! Such a haunting beauty. I could stare at that icon all day. And, yes indeed, you are correct with regard to the Byzantine 'Hail Mary'.
I understand and agree. But still, we need some sweet military victories over Islam, exactly like the Lepanto victory brought to Christianity back then.
”I blinked when I read 'the great historian Hilaire Belloc'. He gets the date of the Battle of Vienna (1683) wrong.”
I'm not sure of what point he's making here, but it's sort of like saying that Murillo's rendition of the "Mater Delorosa" mistakenly had the Virgin Mary's robes blue-on-red when it was supposed to be red-on-blue; it means nada when you know the greatness and bigger picture of the genius. Belloc was/is considered to be the greatest religious and war historian of the 20th century by many. I've read that his memory was phenomenal and his passion for history was unparalleled, (no Google 'geniuses' in those days).
Belloc graduated with First Class Honors from Oxford, and was elected President of their union. Also a great orator, Belloc then went on a lecture tour of the U.S. He had already published two books of verse, 'Verses and Sonnets' and the immensely popular and much reprinted 'The Bad Child's Books of Beasts'.
Then Belloc went back to England where he became literay editor of the 'Morning Post'. Next he was elected to the House of Commons; after one term he returned to journalism and became a writer for four publications, then became editor of 'The Eye Witness', and then collaborated with H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and G.K. Chesterton to write his next book, 'The Party System'. A year later he wrote another successful political book, 'The Servile State', and then proceeded to write three successful Novels and two more history books.
Belloc spent nine months in France's military, where he developed an impressive understanding of military strategy; so much so that he was recruited by the British government to help the war effort, (WWI), and he wrote the successful 'The Two Maps of Europe'. 'The Times of London' recruited Belloc to be their military writer for their new weekly publication 'Land and Water', which became an instant success with over 100,000 publications weekly.
According to Frederick Wilhemsen, in his monograph, 'Hilaire Belloc: No Alienated Man', 1954, Belloc was an extremist for historical detail. Wilhemsen wrote: "Belloc's position absolutely necessitated his emphasis on travel, his minute detection of physical details, his sympathy with verbal tradition...these were all humanistic instruments, rendering him one with the past.- - - Wilhemsen goes on to say how Belloc visited the site of a battle on its anniversary, and if the weather was not right, visited it again and again until it was. Not exactly your average historian, eh?
After the War Belloc continued to proliferate highly successful history books, including 'Europe and Faith' (1920). Belloc also published a series of historical biographies: 'Oliver Cromwell' (1927), 'James II' (1928), 'Richelieu' (1930), 'Wolsey' (1930), 'Cranmer' (1931), 'Napoleon' (1932) and 'Charles II' (1940).
Belloc was also a great orator and enchanting speaker wherever he went to lecture, and he traveled all over Europe and the U.S. lecturing and teaching history.
Hilaire Belloc also (accurately) predicted that Islam would soon rise and threaten the West again. He noted their unbroken adherence to their beliefs while pointing to the gradual loss of faith by the Christian West. The only other historians of his times that I'm aware of who recognized this threat were his great Catholic counterpart, G.K. Chesterton, who wrote a novel with this prediction, and Winston Churchill, who wrote that the only reason why Western man wasn't being attacked by Islam was our superior technology. Few men possessed Belloc's foresight and historical astuteness.
Then as now, Belloc's greatest obstacle to gaining the full notoriety from his peers, which he truly deserved, was that he was a CATHOLIC historian. For him it began when he graduated Oxford with First Class Honors and was never offered a Fellowship by his Protestant University. I suspect this discrimination may be still going on with some folks. So suffice to say that Hilaire Belloc was one of the greatest CATHOLIC historians of all time, that's good enough for me.
thank goodness they won
God bless our Lady of Victories!
May she intervene on behalf of Christianity in our struggle with the scourge of Islam...
Magnus bumpus ad summum!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.