12 September 1683: The Battle of Vienna and the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary

In the Divine Praises we pray:

Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.

Today, 12 September, is the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary.

Devotion to the name of Mary was at first in Spain, by Carmelites.  It was associated with the Octave after the Nativity of Mary.  However, in 1683 Pope Bl. Innocent XI – his tomb was long in St. Peter’s upper Basilica but I think he has been moved – put the Feast on the Church’s universal calendar.  Pope St. Pius X established the Feast on 12 September.

This Feast commemorates the defeat of the Islamic invaders in the Battle of Vienna in 1683.  Vienna was surrounded by the Turks when the King of Poland, John  Sobieski, arrived.  The King served Mass in the morning and lead his smaller force against the invaders, winning a great victory.  81,000 against the Turks’ 130,000.  In the afternoon there was a famous charge by Poland’s 3000 impressive “Winged Hussars”, the largest cavalry charge in history.  Game over for the invaders.

You might not be a Winged Hussar, but your baptism and earthly breath make you, right now, a mighty spiritual warrior whose prayers receive their wings from devotion and intention.  What can not be accomplished through the sincere, focused, confidently loving invocation of the Blessed Virgin by means of the Holy Rosary, repeating her name and the Most Holy Name?

Winged Hussar’s helped to save Christendom.   Christendom, our patrimony, has been squandered.  That doesn’t mean that there are not Christendom causes in our day.  One of them – with painfully blatant urgency – is the preservation of the Traditional Roman Rite.

Will you be a shirker?  Do your part, through grace and elbow grease.  We have to do our part to receive the graces we need.

The Collect of the Feast:

Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus: ut fideles tui, qui sub sanctissimae Virginis Mariae Nomine et protectione laetantur; eius pia intercessione a cunctis malis liberentur in terris, et ad gaudia aeterna pervenire mereantur in coelis.