Posted on 10/11/2016 10:34:47 AM PDT by ebb tide
On the liturgical calendar October 7th is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. This feast celebrates the naval victory of the Holy League fleet at Lepanto which in 1571 saved Christian Civilization from defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
Pope Pius V knew well the tremendous importance of resisting the aggressive expansion of the Ottomans and the certain consequences of defeat at their hands. The battle was a spiritual one and the existence of the Christian West was at stake, so the Holy Father called on the faithful of Catholic Europe to join him in praying the Rosary for a victory for the Holy League, which was internally divided by jealousies and rivalries and dramatically outnumbered by the invaders. The subsequent Christian victory, obtained through the courageous fighting of the men and the powerful intercession of Our Lady, invoked by Europe’s Christians, is widely known historical fact.
Very significantly the Christians went to battle under a banner bearing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, held in the hand of the great-nephew of the Admiral Andrea Doria. The Mother of God had appeared in Mexico forty years earlier and a reproduction of her miraculous image was preserved in the cathedral of Genoa, one of the member states of the Holy League. This lesser-known fact was told to me by an Augustinian friar, now deceased, who worked in the rooms next to the magnificent mural of the Battle of Lepanto in the Sala Regia of the Vatican.
It was while in service as a Swiss Guard that I spent many hours gazing up at this mural commissioned by the Pope and painted by Giorgio Vasari in commemoration of the battle. Many times I found myself praying the Holy Rosary (even if in bits and pieces, the Holy Mother of God knows well how to sort them out) with the beads that Pope St. John Paul II once gave me while he was walking alone in the Loggia one afternoon, an unusual occurrence as he typically had someone with him.
When he arrived in my proximity, before I put myself at attention, I noticed his Rosary in his hand. I must have stared at it because the Holy Father first passed by me without acknowledging my presence and then all of a sudden he was standing right in front of me! He looked intently at me with his deep blue eyes and said, “Mario, the Rosary is my favorite prayer, marvelous in its simplicity and profundity, take these beads and make good use of them.”
That day I decided to become Our Lady’s soldier too and I made sure to carry those beads at all times.
I have not forgotten that decision and now, many years later, as I drive down New Hampshire Avenue every morning on my way to my office at The Busch School of Business and Economics at CUA I take advantage of the ride to say my daily Rosary. Last week, while stopped at a red light, I raised my hand, beads and all, to get something. To my surprise out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a fellow ‘soldier’ of Our Lady! A distinctive man dressed in business attire driving an expensive car looked at me, raised his hand, beads and all, and gave me a thumbs up.
Pope St Pius V knew, long before couriers could have brought the news to Rome, by divine inspiration received while praying the Rosary, and announced from the Church of Santa Sabina on the Aventino hill in Rome, that a triumph of the Cross had been won in the Gulf of Patras in western Greece. Today we too need a triumph of the Cross in our families, our workplaces, and our society.
My dear friends, this most powerful “weapon” of peace for the laity who are called to sanctify the whole world — first by becoming holy and then by shaping their work in light of their faith, letting faith animate every part of the day — is the Holy Rosary. Don’t be ashamed, be Our Lady’s soldier for Christ in the Church. Pray it often; pray it fervently; pray it well.
Pray the Holy Rosary ping!
Lepanto was won.
And now, fast-forwarding a few centuries: Boko Haram has been driven into the woods.
Holy God, we thank you for your infinite mercy.
Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.
Thank you.
Too bad they didn’t help Constantinople fight off the heathen turks.
First of all, thank you !
The Battle of Lepanto stopped an overt, aggressive and hostile conquest of the Ottoman Empire over a previously divided Christendom.
Today, we are faced with a similar, although a covert, assault on Christianity and Western Civilization which is being encouraged by international globalist powers,
and our own Vichy government leadership who advocate infiltration under the guise of Christian benevolence' ! and misguided national cultural heritage.
The Battle of Lepanto was real and dangerous; the battle today is just as real and dangerous, although the Ottoman Empire is now within our borders, and destroying from within.
The battle continues, ..even after 1400 years.
Pray the rosary for moral courage, strength, and fortitude in times such as this, as well as in times of adversity.
The Battle of Lepanto demonstrates and proves the power of prayer as well as the power of praying the rosary.
Ping !
As a protestant who sends his kids to the catholic church and catholic school (because of the entire pro-homo mainstream protestant dominations), the entire Mary veneration thing is kind of odd.
I get the idea of Mary being the mother/bearer of Jesus, and the idea of praying to a saint for intersession, (that is pray for them to pray for us), but sometimes it goes a wee bit over the top. I mean they do not do the same with Paul, Peter and James.
I seem to recall JC telling us to pray to the father. Certainly the vernation of Mary is not in the Bible, nor is she a redeemer, and JC specifically says once he went by-bye the father was sending the Holy Spirit, which was apparently visible to the early fathers, or at least its presence was.
Not that Protestants don’t have their own wacky ideas, disagreements, strange doctrine that make me shake my head. To be even handed the Bible says to nether add or subtract form scripture and what did Luther do, he dropped 6 books. Oh, Vey. Heck I am sure I have at least a few things wrong and misunderstood, to err is human. Not bashing Catholics, just find that particular aspect in the Roman and eastern orthodox church kind of strange.
You send your kids to the Catholic Church? Do you go with them?
yes, though as a re-married man I cannot take communion so sometimes I go to splinter Episcopalian church for that function.
Do you think you are receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ at your Episcopalian “communions”?
Where do your kids receive Holy Communion? Are they Catholic or Protestant?
My reading is communion we do because JC told us to. So yes I think I can take communion at any Christian church that is so disposed to allow it. The exact nature of the host, well, I do not worry about transubstantiation and transmutation, I do it because JC told us to do it, and it seems to me if you are repentant and have your heart in the right place, then it is valid and somehow we are taking part in the last supper, just don’t ask me how, that is above my pay grade.
My kids are going to be catholic when confirmed, they were baptized as papists. That said, to them I say they are ultimately Christians of the church universal, which contains all Christians of any denomination. Unless the Catholics go down the path the Lutherans, Anglicans, Episcopalian and currently the Methodist are headed towards. That is if they replace the two cliff note commandments JC gave us with one: “thou shall love sodomy with all they heart” then me, my wife and the kids say “by-bye”. That is what my native main stream Episcopalians did and why I left never to return.
I have no problems with Catholics sticking to their beliefs and not allowing me communion. I have been particularly happy with the Catholic school we send the little papists-to-be to, it could not be more wholesome, my only fear is it will close like so many such schools are.
Still does not change my protestant puzzling on the Mary veneration.
The writer of Hebrews does not note anything about praying the rosary.
1You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 3Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. 4No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. 2 Timothy 2:1-4 NASB
Paul was a soldier for Christ....not Mary.
The astute reader will see this.
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