The Holy Name of Mary, The Battle of Vienna, and 9/11

The Most Holy Name of Mary

Today's feast honoring the name of Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684 AD, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar.  The feast commemorates the victory of Holy League at the Battle of Vienna on Sept 11-12, 1683.  Although outnumbered nearly 2 to 1, the forces of the Holy Roman Empire joined with a Polish Lithuanian forced commanded by the Polish King Jan Sobieski to defeat the Ottoman army which had besieged Vienna since July 14.  Before the battle, the Polish king had placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Consequently, the feast not only honors Mary and celebrates the great victory, but also gives thanks to the Virgin for her assistance and protection.  The siege of Vienna was the high water mark for the Ottoman invasion of Europe.  Other defeats for the Ottomans followed, as the Austrian Habsburgs would go on to clear southern Hungary and Transylvania of Ottoman forces. 

The late Christopher Hitchens, among others, has speculated that the terrorists who attacked NY and Washington, DC on 9/11 were not only aware of the historical significance of the date, but chose it for that very reason.  As Hitchens writes:

“Now this, of course, is not a date that has only obscure or sectarian significance. It can rightly, if tritely, be called a hinge-event in human history. The Ottoman empire never recovered from the defeat; from then on it was more likely that Christian or western powers would dominate the Muslim world than the other way around... in the Islamic world, and especially among the extremists, it is remembered as a humiliation in itself and a prelude to later ones."

We would do well to imitate King Jan by placing ourselves under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary during our current war.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.