Holy Name of Mary: This is how this festival reached the whole world

Since 1513, lhe Feast of the Holy Name of Mary is celebrated in Spain, but it was not until the miraculous victory of September 12, 1683 in the Battle of Vienna, in present-day Austria, that the Catholic Church ordered that this devotion be commemorated on a universal level.

As Joseph Pronechen recalls en el National Catholic Register“the situation was terrible” in 1683, as “the Turkish invaders of the Ottoman Empire (Muslims) were about to take Western Europe.”

“Europeans everywhere, including the papal nuncio, implored and begged for help, looking to John III Sobieski, King of Poland. “Sobieski had courage and something greater, a great devotion to the Virgin Mary,” he noted.

The Polish king decided to advance his troops towards Vienna “for a decisive confrontation.” But on the way they stopped to ask for help at the Czestochowa Shrine.

“On the morning of September 12, Sobieski participated in Mass, and then confidently told his small, outnumbered army: ‘Let us march with confidence under the protection of Heaven and with the help of the Blessed Virgin!’ .

Pronechen noted that “Sobieski himself led the attack, and his much smaller army and cavalry totally defeated the Ottoman Turkish invaders and ended the invasion. With Vienna and the Christian world saved, Sobieski gave credit only to God.”

After the victory, the Polish king paraphrased the famous phrase of the Roman emperor Julius Caesar I came, I saw, I conquered (I came, I saw, I conquered) for I came, I saw, God won (I came, I saw, God conquered).

In gratitude for the intercession of the Virgin, that year Pope Innocent XI extended the celebration of the Holy Name of Mary to the universal Church.

Originally published September 12, 2022. It has been updated for republication.