Lepanto Sunday

[Macoraba]

IMO the first Sunday in October ought to be officially added to the liturgical calendar of the Church as Lepanto Sunday and celebrated everywhere!

And maybe in the evening have a victory bonfire and fireworks to commemorate this great Catholic naval victory over the Muslims!

"Oct-7OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY [F] Because it originates from, and so well amalgamates the spirituality of St. Dominic, the Rosary is a special devotion of the Order. This day recalls its power at the victory of Lepanto on Oct. 7, 1571, which that year fell on the first Sunday of the month.* In Dominican institutions, the feast is celebrated not on Oct.7 but on the first Sunday of October and usually includes the distribution of blessed roses and a procession."

Dominican Calendar Address:http://www.opwest.org/Directory/calendardominican.htm Changed:8:37 PM on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 Our Lady the Glory of Lepanto - pray for us!

[bboop]

OK, then, Lepanto was October 7 and what was September 11? That battle near Vienna, wasn't it?? Named ???

[Pyro7480]

The Siege of Vienna, 1683 ;-)

[keithtoo]

thank God for victory over the Mohameddans. Charles Martel is the greatest Euro who ever lived.

[TaxachusettsMan]

The old St. Basil Hymnal, from the Basilian Fathers in Toronto, in editions from the 1890s through 1953, was not the least bit shy about commemorating this.

I don't have all the words in my memory, but here is at least part of the hymn for that commemoration:

The clouds hang thick o'er Israel's camp
as dawns the battle day;
Arise, bright Star of Dominic
and chase the gloom away;
And where the foemen fiercest press,
thy glory may we see:
Shine o'er the banners of thy sons
and lead to victory!

See o'er Lepanto's waters spread
the Moslems' dark array!
A voice to Christendom went forth
and gave the word to pray:
Jesus! Mary! Names of strength
invoked and not in vain:
They conquered in our hour of need,
and conquer shall again!

As Pius* then to Europe spake
so Leo** speaks once more:
The Rosary our weapon still
to wield in Holy War

Sorry, can't remember the last couple of lines!

Pius in this hymn: Pope St. Pius V, of course;
Leo: I presume is Leo XIII.

[Pyro7480]

Where did you get that text? Memory?

[TaxachusettsMan]

Yeah - a fount of trivial info!

But I can't remember two lines - and that's makes me . . . . OLD!

Anyhow - it's in the OLD St. Basil Hymnal - I'm sure someone on FR MUST have it! :-)

[pipeorganman]

Here you go! The missing lyrics are in italics.

1. The clouds hang thick o'er Israel's camp as dawns the battle day; Arise, bright Star of Dominic and chase the gloom away; And where the foemen fiercest press, thy glory may we see: Shine o'er the banners of thy sons and lead to victory!

2. The weapon which our Father gave Each hand shall fearless wield; Who bear our Lady's Rosary Need neither sword nor shield: With dauntless faith the ranks they face Or error and of sin, And, armed with those blest beads alone, The victory they win.

3. See o'er Lepanto's waters spread the Moslems' dark array! A voice to Christendom went forth and gave the word to pray: Jesus! Mary! Names of strength invoked and not in vain: They conquered in our hour of need, and conquer shall again!

4. As Pius* then to Europe spake so Leo** speaks once more: The Rosary our weapon still to wield in Holy War Ave Maria! from each tongue Shall rise the pleading word; Oh! doubt not that the prayer of faith Will now, as then, be heard.

[Pyro7480]

Amazing! Thanks! That's quite a hymn!

[Macoraba]

"OK, then, Lepanto was October 7 and what was September 11? That battle near Vienna, wasn't it?? Named ???"

It was 12 September 1683 - the feast of the Holy Name of Mary. The Catholic leader was King John Sobieski of Poland.

[Loyalist]

The conciliar church would as soon forget Lepanto and Our Lady of Victory. Inter-religious dialogue with Islam, you know.

[livius]

I'm not sure BXVI agrees, thank goodness!

[livius]

I'm impressed by your memory! And I hadn't thought of the St. Basil Hymnal for years. I remember seeing it in a few churches in the Northeast during the 50s and into the 60s (battered, worn copies).

[bornacatholic]

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

[Salvation]

The Church of Our Lady Victorious is where the Infant of Praague is housed in Prague, Czech Republic. It was the first main stop on my recent pilgrimage.

[Theoden]

Lepanto

By G.K. Chesterton

White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain--hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still--hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,--
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed--
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.

Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

[bornacatholic]

Amen, brother. That is a great poem. Sadly, too few Christans know about Lepanto, Tours, and Vienna.

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

If you can read this while not wearing a veil and if you never have to make the Hajj, thank a Catholic

[sspxsteph]

I was blessed to be able to see Don Juan de Austria's grave this summer. I did kiss it too. He was an amazing man!!

[Theoden]

It must have been truly awesome to have seen his grave in person. I've only seen pictures of it online. It's too bad his half brother (the King of Spain) held him back for so long.

[bboop]

Thanks for posting the hymn. Excellent. We must bring it back. Maybe that hymn-playing Baptist pastor will put it on his website.