HOLY MARY OF VICTORY

Day 180: November 08

Holy Mary of Victory, Rome, Italy

The difficulties experienced by the life of faith in Prague between the end of the 1400's and the beginning of the 1500's were also reflected in the construction of new religious buildings. In the Mala Strana neighborhood, the Lutherans and Calvinists had their own religious community. In 1584 they built a small chapel named after Jan Hus or St John the Baptist. Soon the capacity of this chapel proved insufficient for the purpose. On July 20, 1611, the significant and important foundation stone of a new construction was laid.

It was after the attack on Prague by the mercenaries of the bishop of Passau and the abdication of Rudolf II that, on July 26, 1613, the church was consecrated to the Holy Trinity. The total cost was 62 thousand gold coins. The ornaments of the Lutheran church were obviously very simple.

On May 23, 1618, some Utraquists (members of the moderate Hussite faction) went to Prague Castle, and threw from the window of the Royal Chancellery the imperial governor Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Kosumberk and Yaroslav of Martinic, the main opponents of the Protestant faction. With this began the Thirty Years' War (various wars between the Protestant and Catholic states).

At the invitation of Ferdinand II, the Father General of the Discalced Carmelites of the Italian Congregation, the Spaniard Father Dominic of Jesus Mary, left for Munich to join the troops of Tilly and Charles Bonaventure Buquoye, departing for Prague via South Bohemia. Father Domenico found among the goods confiscated from the Giovannites a small painting (28.5 x 17.5 cm) depicting the adoration of the shepherds in Bethlehem. In this painting, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds had pierced eyes. The small painting was scarred by Bohemian Protestants. With this painting, Father Domenico accompanied the Catholic army as a spiritual guide to the White Mountain.

On November 8, 1620, the Battle of White Mountain broke out. Luck seemed at first to smile on the Protestant army. According to a legend, Father Dominic of Jesus and Mary then blessed the troops with the picture, instilling in the Catholic soldiers the courage necessary for the decisive victorious attack. During the battle at the White Mountain (Prague) he obtained a resounding victory by emitting vivid splendors that dazzled and defeated the enemies of the Catholic faith. This battle marked the end of Protestant rule in Bohemia.

In 1620, following the historic Battle of White Mountain, Emperor Ferdinand II donated the church of the Holy Trinity of the Protestants to the Order of Discalced Carmelites. On September 8, 1624, the temple was consecrated to the Holy Virgin Mary of Victory as a sign of gratitude for the victory of the White Mountain.

The church in Prague is also very famous outside the national borders not only for its extraordinary architectural beauty, but also and above all because inside it is kept the famous statuette called the Child Jesus of Prague, which comes from Spain and was donated to the Carmelites by Polyxena of Lobkowicz in 1628.

The statue of the Child Jesus of Prague, on either side of which there are two statues of the Virgin Mary and St Joseph, was placed in a glass case along the right nave of the church.

At Lepanto, where in 1571 the Catholic fleet had defeated the Muslim Turkish fleet, something else happened. The image, which is also known as St Mary of Strakonice (the painting's original town in Bohemia), had a rich history ever since. Together with the banners won on the White Mountain it was brought to Rome and solemnly delivered to the Pope. Later it was taken on pilgrimage to the church of the Discalced Carmelites of San Paolo al Quirinale, a church that later changed its title to the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

The emperor had a golden crown prepared for the image. In 1622 the small painting depicting the Virgin and Child Jesus was enthroned there, worn around the neck by Fr Domenico di Gesù Maria during the battle and to whom the aforementioned victory was credited. To give a worthy frame to the memory of this extraordinary event, first Fr Domenico and then the Catholic princes and courts of Europe, among which the religious enjoyed undisputed prestige, committed themselves with substantial offerings to embellish the church. All the chapels thus became real precious treasure chests in which art was lavished with both hands.

Above all, the chapel of St Teresa commissioned by Cardinal Federico Cornaro to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who left the best of his art sculpted in the marble group representing the Transverberation of St Teresa of Avila by the seraph. In 1925, to commemorate the canonization of St Therese of the Child Jesus, the first altar dedicated to the Holy Saint was inaugurated in the church.

The original in Rome disappeared in a fire in 1853. The first copy of the painting had already been painted in 1622 in Rome by the painter Roberto di Longino and was naturally donated to the Discalced Carmelites of Mala Strana, where it still resides in the upper part of the high altar.

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Glory to the Most Blessed Trinity in you, O Mary! Glory to you, O Mary, in the Blessed Trinity, for your predestination and for your holy parents, for your Immaculate Conception, for your gestation, for your birth, for your first offering of yourself, for your infancy, for your presentation in the temple, for your life in the temple."

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, New Jersey, 1997, pp. 391-392)