If you haven’t noticed, life is getting into some dark places these days, and it’s enough to crush people under the weight of worry and fear, but …
Have no fear.
Christ is in control, and …
We’ve been here before.
Remember The Battle of Lepanto?
The Catholic Church sure does, dedicating a special Feast Day to Our Lady in honour of the victory that day – October 7 and the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
There’s a lot you can get all Googly about when it comes to Internet searches on the topic, so, considering the war happening in you know where, I figured I’d pull together some resources for you to give you some hope …
And so you won’t have to do all the keyboard work to find it all.
Before we get to that, though …
A short “confession.”
I compiled this list for an amazing client of mine last year as a way to create the Ultimate Email Guide to the Battle of Lepanto.
Yes, all of this was laid out in an email, which is totally safe and totally cool to do, because your readers will find it totally interesting. If you’re interested, drop me a line at [email protected], and we can start chatting.
In the meantime, enjoy the read, and stay holy my friend.
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October 7th marked the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which also happens to be known as the Feast of Our Lady of Victory …
And it takes place in honour of the historic triumph of Christian forces at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
Can you believe that was just 451 years ago?
Talk about tempus fugit!
Seriously, where does the time go?
Surprisingly, not a lot of Catholics know about the magnitude of this story, which is sad, and it’s why we’ve put together this epic list of resources.
Now, to start things off, let’s do something you won’t see from a lot of other Catholic newsletters …
Let’s go secular.
Here’s a link to a History Today article about the battle.
What’s interesting about this piece is that it looks at the question of how important Lepanto was in the grand scheme of things.
The commentary downplays the significance of the battle in European history, but then you get this quote:
“As sea battles go, Lepanto was devastating. More than 40,000 men died in four hours and the Ottoman fleet was almost annihilated. To survivors it resembled a scene from the end of the world.”
This is a good quote to note, too:
“First, in purely naval-military terms, the battle demonstrated, for the penultimate time, the decisive impact of novel technology against even the most sophisticated, seasoned and formidable opponent. Second, it highlighted the importance of psychological turning points in the practical expression of cultural-political conflicts.”
Now, of course, we can’t forget about the more religious perspective on what happened …
So let’s not hold anything back and go with an article titled How the 1571 Battle of Lepanto saved Europe, on the Catholic Education Resource Center’s website.
This article is great, especially for anyone who’s ever been curious about history.
Yes, it’s a long read, but that’s the price of education and the cost of what it takes to learn about the past.
The article offers context on some of the events leading up to the battle, as well as the Christian turmoil that was underway across Europe, like this nugget:
“Because by 1540 the Reformation had begun separating the Christian nations of the north from Rome, the sultans soon recognized that the Christian world would no longer fight as one.”
There’s also an interesting line in there about a certain battle formation the muslim forces loved to use, and how it actually worked against them.
Moving on …
One area few Catholics tend to focus on when it comes to the Battle of Lepanto is who the Pope was at the time.
Not us, though.
We got your back on this with an article from the European Conservative.
The title sums it up perfectly. It’s all about Saint Pius V, the Pope of Lepanto.
And now …
For those who want to get right down to the Catholic heart of the matter, here’s an informative video about the Battle of Lepanto from the good folks over at Sensus Fidelium.
They cover some incredible religious background in the video …
PLUS, it has details on how the Most Holy Rosary ties into the story.
Finally, just one more video. This is by Ryan Grant, president of Mediatrix press.
If you’re familiar with Mr. Grant, you know how detailed and incredibly thorough he is, and this video has just about everything you need to know, even some points on debunking the secular myths surrounding this battle.
So there you have it, all the important details you need about the Battle of Lepanto, in one amazing and handy email.