The Triumph of Our Lady

The Christians were outnumbered; the odds were stacked against them. The sea was speckled with great ships and gleaming swords. The Ottoman armada had assembled, come to conquer the Christian world. It was around this time of year, some 450 years ago. A Dominican Friar sat upon the chair of St. Peter: Pope St. Pius V, chosen by Christ to be his vicar, to shepherd his flock in an urgent time of need.

The Son of St. Dominic sent a message out to all the faithful: take up the sword of prayer, call upon Our Lady, our mother. Perhaps it was this time she had in mind when she gave the rosary to St. Dominic’s sons. Perhaps it was for a moment such as this that she gave us the beaded wire to her throne. And Pope St. Pius ordered the churches to stay open, day and night, for Christian prayer.

Church bells tolled their solemn summons. Blacksmiths laid down their hammers, barbers their shears. Weavers stood up from the loom and plowmen unhitched their horses. Bakers and booksellers, tradesmen and tellers all left their stands and stores.

Together they gathered. Together they knelt. And a hush fell over the world and hell began to tremble. Because creation echoed once more the angelic words that announced the beginning of heaven’s triumph; the beginning of the end of the devil’s reign: “Hail, Full of grace, Ave Maria, gratia plena.”

The faithful tugged on the heart strings of our mother. They tugged on the emergency line of roses. Stretched taut between heaven and earth, the beaded string was struck. A sweet harmony resounded in Heaven and on earth. And on her throne, a great and determined smile spread beneath her glorious crown.

Mary remembered when she had first been entrusted with our care, when from the Cross, her Son and King, gave her, her maternal mission. “Behold your son”; “Behold your mother.” Like when a mother first sees her child’s face and is filled with a burning sense of purpose, so she burned to carry out her commission given at the cross.

She remembered the upper room when she first reigned as mother of the disciples, when “Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James” all gathered around her. Then, they too were outnumbered and frightened, fugitives in a world that had just killed its Creator, disciples of a murdered master, now risen from the dead.

And she prayed then for her children. She mothered them, nursed them, encouraged them, as she had mothered and nursed and encouraged the very Son of God. She had yet to be crowned queen of heaven, but she reigned then and there in that upper room. She who commanded her son at Cana would never be denied. She was the secret weapon of the Apostolic band. She was the hearth, the fireplace of charity. The saving mysteries burned in her heart, fueled by her pondering, fired by her charity and inflaming the faith of all — she the furnace and forge of faith’s double-edged sword.

And now many years later, her children called to her again. Pier and Jean, Jacopo and Andres, Toma and Matthias: the blacksmiths and barbers and bakers and booksellers, the youth and the elders of Christendom down on their knees, pondering the mysteries she forever ponders, striking the line, the string of roses stretching to her throne.

She surveyed the field of battle, seeing the Ottoman fleet, with their hundreds of galleys powered by the oars of Christian slaves, Christians captured in battle, now forced to fight against their Lord, rowing as enslaved oarsmen in the underbellies of the ships. She sees the smaller Christian navies, like the Apostles, outnumbered and afraid. Her children once again in danger, kneeling at prayer, led by the humble friar, now pope, praying the beads on bended knee.

She places her hand upon the hand of her Son enthroned at her side. She looks to her Lord who casts down the mighty and who lifts up the lowly. And in her eyes, He reads her motherly concern. She turns then to the angelic host, eager and waiting for a mission, a command from her blessed lips, and she says once again as she said once in Cana, “Do whatever he tells you.”

And in an instant, just like the winds of Galilee before, the winds at Lepanto fall silent. The enemy’s sails go slack. The Aves echo, the mysteries are pondered. Knees ache, backs grow stiff, and then the wind begins to shift. Christian sails are filled. The battle is rejoined. Defeat is turned to victory. Christian slaves are freed from Turkish galleys, and Christendom is saved.

And now, centuries later. In the year of the same Lord 2025, we gather once again in the upper room of Mary’s house. Her children once again, outnumbered and in need, aboard the Barque of St. Peter, sailing to heavenly shores on stormy seas.

We’ve gathered for many different reasons. Each of us comes bearing his or her own need and urgent petition. But when we look together over the horizon, we see a common foe approaches. A new armada has assembled. It sails under a banner blank and empty, not an emblem or a word. You could call it the Armada of amnesia, the fleet of the forgetters, and those who man the oars are not our enemies, but brothers and sisters enslaved.

The fleet is large enough to make the devil blush with pride. For centuries he has carefully cultivated our forgetfulness. He has labored to have us forget the unforgettable, to forget that the Creator entered his Creation, that God became man in a virgin’s womb. The devil has labored to have us forget the reason for year one and the reason for year number 2025, to call our era common with no recollection of its Lord.

The devil has labored to have us forget that the air we breathe fed the lungs of God, that the water we drink has quenched the thirst of its Lord, that the earth we walk has born the footsteps of its Creator. The devil has labored to hide from our minds the radiant mercy and the love of the Cross, to have us forget that the Lord who rose in glory, will come again to judge living and the dead. The cunning serpent has been patient, slowly turning reality into myth and myth into a forgotten dream.

This is the great forgetting. This is the Armada of amnesia. And let us be honest, because just as the Ottoman ships were rowed by Christian slaves, so too often we have found ourselves among the forgetful, rowing the cursed oars ourselves against the Barque of Peter.

We too often have let the mysteries be forgotten, and the fleet has gathered strength. The annunciation has been forgotten, with its angelic honors given to the chosen mother, and a new feminism arises despising motherhood itself. The visitation has been forgotten, with its prophet leaping in the womb, and a culture of death clamors for the right to kill the unborn. The nativity has been forgotten, with the poor God-child born in a stable, no crib, no bed, and the poor homeless are passed over with averted eyes.

The miracle of Cana has been forgotten, with its divine toast to husband and wife, and the creature pretends that marriage, sex, and gender are subject to its will. Our Lord’s agony has been forgotten, his scourging and his heavy cross, and now doctors kill the suffering to put an end to their despair.

The crowning with thorns has been forgotten, and the vainglorious sell their souls for likes and follows. The crucifixion and resurrection, the great ascension and assumption, the great victory of God, the triumph over sin and death, the offer of an eternal inheritance, the promised return to Eden, the offer of paradise without end, it has all — if you can believe it — been forgotten, and the inheritance of God is traded for the treasure of man.

Now, humbled and repentant, we gather like the Apostles before, in Mary’s house again. And now we remember. We remember for all the world. We ponder and we pray. We have gathered and give our pledge: we will not let the mysteries burn out. Mary, our mother, we will ponder with you. We remember the true history of our World. We will remember the Victory of God. And we will remember that it all began with you. With an Ave. With a fiat.

We are not angels, mother. Our Ave is not so pure. But listen to your children. Remember all the times you’ve come to our aid before. We are still small and surrounded, outnumbered and afraid. But our Aves still echo. Like the angel, like the Christians of old, we have come to the upper room, to be with you, Mother, we have traveled from afar. Remember your maternal mission, when Your Son gave us to you to be our mother.

You gave us the beads through Dominic’s sons, for moments such as these. We strike the sacred cord. We pull upon the beaded line! Show yourself our mother.

And now we look in faith and see. How she places her hand upon the hand of her Son. She commands the angels once more: “Do whatever he tells you.”

And already the winds have begun to shift. The armada’s sails are going slack. The world does not yet remember but is beginning to suspect that something has been forgotten. A gnawing sensation is growing that something is not right. More and more are noticing. A barren culture, a childless future, the deceit of lust, the shackles of shame, the loneliness of the city of man. More and more are noticing. The culture of death is killing its own. The dictatorship of relativism is consuming its subjects. Godless narcissism has slipped its mask and its ugliness is showing.

The wind is shifting now. Look and see how our own sails are filling. The word has gone out from the heavenly throne. And now is the time to liberate the slaves at the oars. Now is the time to ponder the sacred mysteries, to fire up the furnace of faith, to keep the torch between our teeth, to share the sacred flame.

The Aves echo once more, and our mother has heard us. Hail, full of grace. Hail, mother of mercy. Hail, refuge, comfort, help of Christians. You are with us in the Upper Room, and you have heard us. We have not been forgotten. And now and always we remember. This is the year of Our Lord. Jesus, the Son of Mary. The God who died that we might live. Let every heart remember and every soul stand in awe and wonder once more. Even though the world would forget, we remember, and we proclaim it. Ave Maria, forever and ever, and to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, always fiat and glory be.