Catholic trivia: Remembering Leponto

 Having Hamas (NOT Palestinians but Iran's proxies) attack Israel on their high holy days is not new. 

these terrorist groups tend to chose anniversaries to inspire them to kill their enemies.

Sigh. 

Israel last week was condemned for attacks on houses in Gaza where the missiles and weapons were stored, and widely condemned, because of course theweapons hide them among civilians, better to have dead children to show for propaganda purposes.

But obviously the Israelis missed some. Hmmm... 5000 missiles must have cost a lot of money. Wonder where they got it? Maybe from Iran, and maybe from diverting millions sent from the USA or the EU to help civilians of course.

So what can we do about this before WWIII starts?

and what about the Ukraine, Taiwan, Azerbaijan, or a dozen wars in Africa that are causing millions of refugees?

Send money? And how much of it will be stolen or diverted into weapons?

Or we can pray.

I am religious enough to pray but I am secular enough to wonder if it matters. But once in awhile, you know, prayer does change things. Or it can inspire people to act to change things.

Hamas attack of course occured on the high holy days of the Jewish people. Coincidence?

But the Catholic blogs remember: because we have feast days to commemorate these things.

 Oct 7 is the anniversary of the Battle of Leponto. Feast of our Lady of the Rosary (pre Vatican II name: Our Lady of Victory). The Naval battle that stopped a Turkish invasion of Europe.

And it might not be a coincidence that the 911 attack occured on the day before the anniversary of the lifting of the seige of Vienna. (pre Vatican II feast day: Holy Name of Mary).

both of these days are remembered every year with feast days to Mary. because both times the laypeople were encouraged to pray against the invaders by saying the rosary (in the days of illiteracy, the rosary was an easy prayer to lift one's mind and heart to God in praise and thanksgiving).

This is not, of course, the only time that prayer stopped bad things from happening. 

Here in the Philippines, the People Power revolution was led by Cardinal Sin (! yes that's his name: it's Chinese). by people praying the rosary and singing hymns.

And even earlier the Battle Of Manila against British/Dutch invaders was also believed to be repelled by a combined Spanish/Filipino force under the patronage of our Lady of the Rosary.

In recent history, many attributed the fall of the Iron curtain to people praying for the conversion of Russia. There is a complicated conspiracy theory about how the Vision of Mary in Fatima Portugal fortold this, and how prophecies from that vision inspired John Paul II to have people pray and overthrow the government of Poland peacefully, and soon the entire Iron curtain fell. 

another aside: our town's patron is La Divina Pastora, showing Mary as a shepherdess with a sheep. This is actually a Spanish title for Mary and I assumed the divine part was merely Spanish hyperbole, on the order of "the Divine Miss M' or St John the Divine. 

But the crazy Jeremiah, Ann Barnhart (NSFW), had an essay about the title last week, and corrects me: it is not Mary the divine lady who happens to be a shepherdess, but Mary the mother who is shepherdess of the Divine: i.e. the Lamb of God.

she wears a wide brimmed hat, similar to the straw hats worn by farmers here. The only major miracle is one that supposedly they took the statue out to stop a flood, and it worked.

In the secular USA, such things are scoffed at, so although the lay folk have backyard shrines to Mary all over the place (aka Bathtub madonna) it is usually mocked as a lower class custom. True, but don't mock those who put them up: Our next door neighbor in Pennsylvania had one, and he and his five burley sons were coal miners and might not appreciate your mockery.

the closest thing to a miracle of prayer in the US was when the Union and Confederate armies were looking for each other in Northern Virginia near the border of Pennsylvania. Mother Seton's sisters prayed that the battle would not occur in Emmitsburg where they had a school and motherhouse...the armies did fight, but not in Maryland but further north, in a more isolated farm area where five roads met: Gettysburg. Two days after the battle, the Sisters traveled north to nurse the wounded.

all of these stories are folk tales, and rarely get into history. But they show the popular stories behind the staid dry history told in history books. And ironically it is an agnostic, Jordan Peterson, who defends these stories as myths that are a way of memory of the lessons of humanity and how such lessons are remembered by ordinary folk.

These tales and rumors (and visions) and stories and paintings that eerily prophecy things that later occur tend to pop up when ordinary people sense trouble is coming... and right now, there are a lot of these rumors perculating around the social media...

So say a prayer/ not just for the world, where war is threatening many, but for the church that is facing a revolt of the elite against ordinary believers.

It might help, and even if it doesn't help, it will give you strength to face the future troubles calmly, and like the sisters at Emmitsburg, give you the strength to go out and help the innocent caught in these diabolic wars.