https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAKYICdbwA4
One of the glories of the Franciscan Capuchin Order, Blessed Marco d’Aviano (1631-1699), was beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 27, 2003. Devotion to Blessed Marco had always been strong in the Capuchin order and he was especially esteemed by St. Leopoldo of Castelnuovo (1866-1942), that great Apostle of Unity with the Eastern Orthodox and confessor of souls.
In beatifying the Capuchin, Pope John Paul II declared him to have been “the center of a vast spiritual renewal thanks to his courageous preaching accompanied by miraculous prodigies.”
British writer Dr. Harriet Murphy, who has attracted attention to the saintly Capuchin as “the Savior of Vienna and Europe,” noted: “Blessed Marco d’Aviano was the spiritual force behind the historic military victory of Catholic Europe over Islam in 1683. He was an Italian Capuchin Friar who worked with the Hapsburgs to achieve a great victory in the Battle for Vienna which saved Europe from Islamic conquest.
“Preaching prayer and penance to the worldly court and people, he told the monarch (the devout Leopold I, 1658-1705) and the faithful that they faced the threat of decimation by an imminent Muslim invasion of the Habsburg Empire and warned them of the punishment of a just God who was angered by the laxity of His followers. He told them that the Muslims could only be defeated by radical repentance and fearlessness, and confidence in the mercy of God.”
He traveled and preached incessantly in Germany and Hungary, calling on both Catholics and Protestants to convert and make reparation for their sins, and he exhorted the Protestants in the Hapsburg Emperor’s army to be reconciled to the Catholic faith. He cried out to his fellow Catholics: “Vienna, Vienna, your love of lax living has prepared you a grave and imminent chastisement: convert, and consider well what you are doing. O wretched Vienna.”
In 1683 Europe was still suffering from the spread of Protestantism, the destruction wrought by the Thirty Years War, and the plague which caused over 100,000 deaths. Faced with the apathy of many to mount another crusade to save Europe, Pope Innocent XI appointed Blessed Marco d’Aviano as apostolic nuncio and papal legate, and his personal envoy to the Emperor Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, to resolve the disputes among the armies of the “Holy League,” which included Austria, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Venice, and the Papal States.
To arouse and unify the Christian combatants, the Capuchin preacher engaged in a “war of words” against the threat of Islamic invasion, denouncing the doctrinal heresies of Islam, and fervently invoking the intercession of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
To this day, many of her paintings and pictures remain in the churches of Austria in commemoration of the great victory of 1683, which saved the nation and Vienna in particular from the ravages being perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks.
Go here to The Wanderer to read the rest. The Polish King John Sobieski, whose charge of his Polish winged cavalry broke the back of the Turkish forces at the Siege of Vienna, was a friend of Blessed Mark and ascribed the history altering victory of the Christian forces solely to God. He sent the captured green banner of the Prophet to the Pope after Vienna with this simple message: Veni, vidi, Deus vincit! (I came, I saw, God conquered!)
Hattip to Amanda Servello for the video below:
