24 May 2017
Parent Category: Iniziative (EN) -
Category: MAMT – Mediterranean Museum of Art, Music and Traditions
"Auxilium Christianorum "," Help of Christians ", is the title that has been given to the Virgin Mary at all times and so it is also invoked in the Lauretan litanies of the Rosary. On virtues, life, predestination, motherhood, mediation, intercession, virginity, immaculate conception, pain suffered, Mary's assumption, thousands of volumes have been written, kept by various Councils, proclaimed dogmas of faith, to the point that an authentic theological science has arisen: Mariology. And the mediating and rescuing presence of Our Lady has always been reaffirmed for those who invoke her, we have been entrusted to her as children of Jesus on the Cross and to us humanity she has been indicated as mother, in the person of John the Apostle, also at the foot of the Cross.
The invocation Auxiluimchristianorum, now pro nobis, appears for the first time in the version of the Lithanias published in 1576 and approved by Pope Clement VIII in 1601; it was absent in the oldest version, dating back to 1524. According to tradition, this invocation was added by Pope Pius V after the victory given by the Holy League over the Ottomans in Lepanto (7 October 1576), but more probably represents a variant of the title Advocatachristianorum which is found in the 1524 edition. The title (together with those of Advocate, Soccorritress and Mediator) is also used in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium of 1964. In any case, the official use of the title "Auxilium Christianorum" was made with the invocation of the great Marian and Dominican pope Saint Pius V (1566-1572), who entrusted her with the armies and destinies of the West and Christianity, threatened for centuries by the Turks who arrived to Vienna, and who in the great naval battle of Lepanto (1571) faced and conquered the Muslim fleet. The pope instituted for this glorious and definitive victory, the feast of the Holy Rosary, but the grateful invocation to the heavenly Protector as "Auxilium Christianorum", does not seem to have to be attributed directly to the pope, as was then said, but to the victorious veterans who, returning from the battle, passed by Loreto to thank Our Lady; instead, the banner of the fleet was sent to the church dedicated to Mary in Gaeta. The cry of joy of the Christian people perpetuated itself in this invocation; the Venetian Senate had written under the great commemorative painting of the Battle of Lepanto, in the Doge's Palace:"Neither power, nor weapons, nor leaders led us to victory, but Mary of the Rosary" and so alongside the ancient titles of Consolatrixafflictorum (Consolator of the afflicted) and Refugiumpeccatorum (Refuge of sinners), was added for the people and for the Church Auxilium Christianorum (Aid of Christians).