1st February : Our Lady Of Victory
1st February
Our Lady Of Victory
Country :
Year :
No text of Holy Writ seems more appropriate to the Crusade of Victory than the words of the beloved Disciple, St. John. In them there is the ring of triumph. His is the optimistic note…”This is the Victory which overcometh the world—our Faith”. (1st, John V.5)
St. John lived in the world with problems closely akin to our own. It was a time of oppression, injustice and slavery for many. It was a time for false ideologies – a time when men enshrined as gods the very vices of the age. Drunkenness was glorified as the god Bacchus. Impurity was enshrined as the goddess Venus.
While atheistic Communism may have little to say, just now it follows the same principles, seeks to dethrone the true God, proclaims godlessness and defies ideologies abhorrent to all Christian teaching.
Like the pagan Roman Empire, the Communists seek to overrun the world, to despoil nations and to enslave whole populations. Since history repeats itself on the international scene, are we not fortunate to have for our guidance the inspired words of one taught by Christ Himself, St. John? What is so certain to assure us in our efforts to overcome the world? It is the faith taught by Christ, handed down through His Apostles and delivered to us today by the Church of Christ, governed by Christ’s Vicar on earth, our Holy Father, the Pope.
St. John the Evangelist is called the “beloved disciple”. He was the friend of Christ. It was He that stood at the foot of the Cross of Christ with Mary, our Co-redemptrix. He received so to speak the codicil of Christ’s will to mankind. Our blessed Savior gave to us in the person of St. John, Mary, as our Mother; “Son, behold thy Mother. Mother behold thy son.” St. John felt the wave of love from the Sacred Heart of our divine Lord, as he rested on the Master’s Bosom. He was the witness who saw Christ shed His most precious Blood for our redemption. Who could be better qualified to give us in our time of conflict and uncertainty, a message of reassurance, that our Faith will triumph again over paganism and reign supreme.
We, the people of our time, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, families, must learn from history. We must turn to prayer to overcome the problems that shadow our lives. Without waiting for heavenly reward, we must find our hope, new hope, new strength and happiness in this world. Wars, rumors of wars, political and religious enslavement, crime, divorce, shattered homes, juvenile delinquency, are not new to history, nor are they ever beyond the power of prayer.
Seven hundred years ago the Catholic world was menaced by the heresy of the Albigenses. St. Dominic met the peril by his crusade of the Rosary under the protection of Our Blessed Lady. So complete was the victory, that the Albigensian heresy is known today as only the time when our Blessed Mother conquered, in the annals of the dim past. Yet, this heresy is comparable to the menace of atheistic Communism in our own time. The weapon that eliminated the Albigensian heresy was the Rosary. We have that same weapon in all its power now.
Our Lady herself in her apparition at Fatima indicated that the Rosary will do for us now what it did then; give us victory. She even told the children at Fatima to pray for the conversion of Russia; that the storm center of the world is Russia, at a time (1917) when Russia was not seriously on the world horizon. Mary confided to the children of Portugal, facts that had escaped the diplomats and political observers of the world powers. The only remedy Our Lady suggested is prayer; the Rosary. As she holds aloft this weapon and urges the world to the Crusade of her Rosary, may we not hear Mary repeat with the voice and optimism of St. John; “This is the victory that overcometh the world, our Faith”.
