Post #5933

BLESSED VIRGIN MARY HELP OF CHRISTIANS From the very beginning, the Church and the individual faithful have invoked the very powerful help of the Virgin Mary against Satan and his followers in need. And she, a really strong woman, a new Judith, went down into the battle arena, defeating all heresies and enemies of the Christian name: "Gaude, Maria Virgo, cunctas haereses sola interemisti in universo mundo"! Just as in Spain she patronized the birth of the Reconquest war by assisting the Christians in the victory of Covadonga (722), so in 1570 she assisted the Crusaders of Lepanto. It was then that Saint Pius V introduced the invocation "Auxilium Christianorum, ora pro nobis" into the Lauretan Litanies. The feast of Mary "Help of Christians" was established by Pius VII in 1815 and set for May 24 in thanks for his return to Rome after the Napoleonic imprisonment on May 24, 1814. Great devotee of Mary Help of Christians was St. John Bosco, who raised her the great basilica in Turin.