September 12: The Battle of Vienna
In 1683, the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire were at
war. Vienna had been under siege for months. On 11
September a coalition of Christian forces, a Holy League blessed by Bl.
Pope Innocent XI, arrived with Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland, to lift the
siege.
When he saw that the Turks were about to breach the walls of
the city, Sobieski attacked earlier than he had intended.
On 12 September at 4 am the battle was
closed. Sobieski had called on the protection of Our Lady of
Czestochowa before the battle.
He sent his forces of 81,000 against the Turks’
130,000. In the afternoon Sobieski led a downhill charge which broke the
Turkish line and then seized the abandoned tent of the Ottoman general who had
fled.
The Battle of Vienna halted
the spread of the Ottoman Empire into the rest of Europe.
Bl. Innocent XI commemorated the victory at Vienna by
extending the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, which had been
observed in Spain and by the Carmelites, to the whole Latin Church. One
of the pair of churches in Rome near the Forum of Trajan is dedicated to the
Name of Mary.
Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, which in
part commemorates the defeat of the Islamist Ottoman Turks by Jan Sobieski at
the walls of Vienna.
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.
Holy Mary, Mother of God…
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