Today's feast of the Holy Rosary sits uneasily with the contemporary Church, it is not the feast of a method of prayer, it is really the feast of Our Lady of Victories and the Victory being celebrated is a very specific victory, the defeat of the great fleet of the Sultan at Le Panto.
The idea of God being on a specific side in a war is indeed strange in a Church which edits scripture, cutting out that uncomfortable verses of scripture, for example the psalm of Sunday Vespers which speaks of the piling up of bodies, the scattering far and wide of heads.
Bodies were indeed piled and heads scattered at Le Panto, the result was the destruction of the Islamic threat to the Mediterranean seaboard of Europe until the present day.
In our culture of relativism how strange that we should have been so certain of right on the Christian side.
5 comments:
I think it sits uneasily with the Church of the 1960s and 70s. It doesn't sit uneasily with me - and I am very contemporary - still alive, working and with youngish children. (Of course I may be about to be poisoned by the fruits of SP, so do check occasionally that I am still posting - if I do succumb, can I have black vestments and no eulogy). And in the near future, Our Lady of Victories could be needed more than at any time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
God has allowed us to fail many times.
When the King of Spain sent his armada to defeat England, a wind caused the Spanish to lose the battle. The Protestants won the war.
We should not presume on Gods grace, but be confident He is with His Church until the end of time.
Whether we are with His Church rest with us.
Viva Cristo Rey!
This is one battle cry that never fails.
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I made a point of going to Mass today specifically because the Mass pullsed NO punches about overthrowing the Mohammedans. The church knew it was in a fight for the survival of the Christian culture in Europe. Sad to say too many are cowering in a corner pretending the Mohammedans aren't out to get us.
Oh that Don John of Austria would again set his people free. The battle continues.
We still have the contend with the same threat that Lepanto was all about. This time the enemy is doing war by peaceful means, provided to them by us.
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