On this feast of Our Lady of Victory, I thought it might be profitable for us to meditate on Our Lady's victories throughout, at least, recent Christian history, and then turn to the question of how this might have meaning in our own personal Christian lives.
First, let's remember that this feast is principally about Lepanto, but not entirely about Lepanto. It is about far more. The battle of Lepanto is, of course, the naval battle fought between the forces of La Santa Alianza (the Holy Alliance) and the naval forces of the Ottoman Empire. Even though the Alliance was outnumbered at, initially, at a disadvantage, the tide of battle was changed by the intervention of the Most Holy Mother of God, on account of fervent prayers, particularly the Rosary, of the entirety of Catholic Europe.
Then, however, the feast also remembers another signal victory worked through the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God a hundred years later, when the siege of Vienna was lifted unexpectedly by the arrival of the King of Poland-Lithuania, Jan Sobieski, who routed the armies of the Ottoman Empire and drove Turkish forces back as far as the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire never recovered from these defeats. From that point in the 17th century until the Empire's demise in 1924 it was regularly referred to as "the sick man of Europe."
Even beyond these great victories against Islam's incursions into Europe, let's reflect on some of the other astounding victories of the Most Holy Mother of God, worked on behalf of the People of Her Son. First of all, the unexpected victory of the Catholic people of Donglu over the armed mobs of the Boxer Rebellion. The Catholic church in Donglu, surrounded for almost two weeks by the rebels, was unexpectedly saved, when, during the rebels' final assault on the church and the people, who had taken refuge within it, the Most Holy Mother of God herself appeared briefly, before sending the Holy Archangel Michael and a fiery chariot to drive the rebels away from the breech point in the siege. The ensuing confusion among the rebels caused them to turn on one another. They were completely routed and the siege was lifted.
Finally, there is the similar unexpected victory worked by the intercession of the Most Holy Mother of God in October of 1942, when, on the first night, 23 October, she sent the fourth-century Egyptian martyr Mena and his trademark camels to create widespread confusion in the battle lines of the Axis Powers at El-Alamein. Although it took nearly another three weeks for total victory to be attained, the trajectory of the battle was determined that night. The Axis forces under Field Marshall Erwin Rommel were routed and Egypt was saved from conquest by the Nazi Third Reich.
So, in all these cases, why does the Most Holy Mother of God work these astounding victories. It is always for the same reason. It is always to preserve freedom. We have a false idea of freedom in our world. We think that freedom is the liberty to follow our desires and impulses. Real freedom, what the Holy Apostle Paul calls "the freedom of the children of God," is the liberty NOT to have to follow our desires and impulses, in order to pursue our own perfection. The freedom of the musician is not to ham-fistedly to play the instrument in any way he likes. It is, rather, the facility, built through knowledge and practice, to play the instrument completely correctly, without flaw and error, with an ease that appears to onlookers to be a second nature. In a similar way, true freedom in human life generally always involves obedience to the will of God. When true freedom is threatened, the Most Holy Mother of God acts in answer to prayers. Just as true freedom were impossibilities in the Islam being forced upon Europe by the Ottoman Empire, the death and destruction caused by the Boxers and the Nazi Third Reich, so too there are many circumstances in our own life that amount to substantial threats to true freedom. Always, it is a matter of slavery to our passions. At these times, we need to call out to the Mother of God. She will act to preserve the freedom of her children.
No comments:
Post a Comment