The Spirit of Lepanto
The history of the Battle of Lepanto is a parable of Marian
Chivalry. It is all about the idealism
of the cross, devotion to Our Lady, and the manly translation of prayer into
action for the glory of God and the salvation of men.
In the late sixteenth century Christendom faced the
onslaught of the Ottoman Empire. The
Muslim armies threatened to overrun Christian Europe and establish Islam as the
prevailing religion. It was a time for heroism, but there were few heroes. It
was time to rally under the banner of Christ the King and His Holy Mother, but
only a remnant of Christian soldiers were prepared to fight. The two principal protagonists of the Battle
of Lepanto were the Vicar of Christ, Pope St. Pius V and Don John of Austria, the
bastard son of Charles V. Both were men
of prayer and action. The one, a priest,
gave witness first of all to the power of prayer. The other, a layman, epitomized the
translation of prayer into action.
The Holy League
St. Pius V, man of vision that he was, knew the peril of
Christendom, and personally selected the young nobleman, Don John of Austria
for his pure way of life, his unflinching courage, and his clear-sighted
conviction. The saintly pope told the young
man charged with the command of the Christian forces: “Charles V gave you life.
I will give you honor and greatness.”
Pius V also enlisted the help of Spain and Venice, to which
he added the Knights of Malta and troops from the Papal States. This became the
Holy League led by Don John. However, much the rest of Christian Europe stood
by and risked the complete loss of Christendom to the Islamic invasion. The Protestant heresy, indifferentism and
politics kept France, Germany and England from participating. Most of all there was a decadence of mind and
conviction, what Chesterton called the “tangled things and texts and aching
eyes,” of a spiritless Europe falling headlong into relativist philosophy, the
slogan of “scripture alone,” and the rejection of the Woman whom God made
worthy to be the Mother of His Son.
Only an unwavering conviction in the truth, and the
unflinching willingness to die for it could match the foe that now threatened
to silence the voice of the Church. The lips of Don John’s men would be
sanctified and emboldened to sound the battle cry. Thus Don John ordered that
blasphemy or any doubt of the faith expressed publicly by his men to be
punished as sedition. A milieu of flabby
faith had not raised boys to be men, but the firm faith of a boy had made him a
leader of men.
A Turn of the Wind
Mediated through the maternal Heart of Mary, providence
brought the natural forces of gallant knights under the influence of
supernatural direction and power. Pope St. Pius V sent Don Juan of Austria and
the Holy League with rosaries into battle, and he asked all of Christendom to
pray along with them and for them. He said: “I am taking up arms against the
Turks, but the only thing that can help me is the prayers of priests of pure
life.” An image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was even sent by Philip II of Spain to
Admiral Giovanni Adrea Doria, which he mounted in the cabin of his flagship and
took with him into battle.
On the morning of October 7, 1571 the ships of the Holy
League sailed into the Gulf of Lepanto, against the wind toward a fleet that
was vastly larger. Don John of Austria
was a true knight, a man of both prayer and action. During the battle with
crucifix in hand, Don John went from ship to ship calling out repeatedly to his
men: “My children, we are here to conquer or die. In death or victory you will
win immortality.” But the good captain of the Holy League was prepared not only
with prayer, but also with a plan. His
galleys were state of the art with greater firepower and defensive protection,
and the enemy was not prepared to deal with them. Still Don John was badly outnumbered.
In the end, it was God, through the intercession of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, who indeed gave the Don John the
victory. When the fleet
entered the Bay of Lepanto they had the wind in their faces. The galley slaves
struggled to power the fleet into battle, while the much larger Muslim fleet
rested and waited with the wind in its favor. But as Don John and his officers
knelt in prayer beneath the blue banner of the Holy League, the wind suddenly changed,
the Christian sails filled and Our Lady’s host was now suddenly bearing down
upon the Turks. What had looked like a
certain loss for Christendom suddenly turned into a rout of the Turks. Fewer than fifty of the more than three
hundred Turkish ships managed to escape and most of these were so damaged that
they had to be burned. This was not the
end of conflict of Christendom with the Ottoman Empire, but it was the turning
point and the end of imminent threat to the independence of Christian Europe.
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| Mary's Intercession at the Battle of Lepanto, 1571 |
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