Last week I received an email about my post on the Siege of Vienna from a reader of my site who wishes to be referred to only as an anonymous monk. Having received his permission to publish the body of his letter, I here present it in full, with only the salutation and ending abridged:

WE are all troubled, seeing the wave of Moslems sweeping into Europe.  I hear they are headed primarily for Germany and Austria… indeed, that a large group is marching to Austria right now.

Now, I am a monk of the Catholic Church; being recently converted from the Orthodox Church, today is my first time celebrating the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary.

Chanting Matins for the Feast last night, I learned that it commemorates the great and momentous victory over the Moslems at the gates of Vienna in 1683. I see from your recent post, that you know all about it, but I wonder if you know about the role of the Blessed Virgin in it.  King Jan Sobieski had set out for Vienna on the Feast of the Assumption; his armies stopped at the shrine of our Lady of Czestochowa and asked the Virgin’s blessing upon their arms.  They arrived within the Octave of the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin and, after Mass in her honor, King Jan arose and rallied his army to fight, confident in her assistance.  Seized by a strange panic in the battle, his enemies fled.

It was then that Bd. Pope Innocent XI instituted the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary for September 12th.

After Matins last night, I had a feeling that the Virgin still stood ready to defend Europe as the Moslems, again, on September 11th, draw near to Vienna.  I tried to shake it is a merely dramatic impulse, but could not, and so I resolved to share my thought with somebody in a position to take some action, if anybody else feels so moved.  Our Lady has repeatedly asked Western man to repent and entrust themselves to Her Immaculate Heart.  I have continually felt that the crisis of the West is primarily spiritual, and that, should the West repent, we may be surprised at the swift response of unlooked-for aid from heaven.  Certainly nothing good will come to us from our “leaders.”  I saw the crowds, furious with [German Chancellor] Merkel; but what does Merkel care?  Rallies are fine, but so often we make the mistake of acting on the primarily or merely political level.  Let them consecrate themselves to the Unstained Heart of the Virgin, and march under Mary’s banner and invoke Her aid, and they may find Her to be a kinder ruler.

Sadly, even the former institutions of Catholicism have been occupied by open heretics and apostates, whom Catholic law and doctrine teach us we are to regard as excommunicated ipso facto, even without a declaratory sentence of the Church.  The faithful find themselves without ecclesiastical or civil authority that honors God aright.  But for that reason the Virgin will love all the more the children that flock to her, truly perceiving that she is their only refuge, after God. If the civil authorities will do nothing and the Ecclesiastical “authorities” will only encourage the invasion, let the people take it upon themselves to go in procession to her shrines and to invoke her, the Auxilium Christianorum.

Also, in 1683 Bd. Innocent XI asked all the faithful to say the Rosary for the intention of Vienna’s (and the Empire’s) deliverance; we faithful should make a point of that this week, I think, as the Octaves of the Virgin’s Nativity and Holy Name conclude.

In any case, I wanted to encourage the people there; as I say, I felt strongly that I should share the message.  Nothing supernatural has happened on my end – no visions or any such thing – just a strong feeling that the people should now be spending at least as much time publicly showing signs of repentance and piety, and invoking the Woman who has come to the aid of Europe more than once, as they spend on a woman (Merkel) who cares not at all for their petitions.