A reminder that God loves His warriors and helps those who help themselves:
In 1571 as the Muslim fleet threatened Europe, Christendom was deeply divided. Protestants fought Catholics. France fought the Holy Roman Empire. Christian princes even allied WITH the Muslims against their Christian brothers. They were all too self seeking to see the threat and and answer the call.
But one man—a bastard with no lands and barely even a title—takes weapons from the wall and rides to the sea. Don John of Austria.
Who was Don John? He had no throne. He was the bastard son of Charles V and a burgher’s daughter from Regensburg. Raised in obscurity, not even told who his father was. When his half-brother Philip II finally acknowledged him, it wasn’t with lands or title, just a name and a small allowance. Among the princes of Christendom he was the last man you’d pick: No inheritance, no wealth, no claim to rule.
Yet when the Ottoman fleet gathered in the waters just beyond Italy, this forgotten son was the one who answered. Because no one else would.
Yes, the Pope called for the defense of Christendom, and that is more than we have today. But no one sent Don John personally. No one gave him the wealth to outfit an army. The most likely outcome was that they’d all die. Don John went because someone had to.
That’s the pattern of every important battle in Christian history. One man, alone, often betrayed by his Christian brothers, under resourced, with only a small band of bedragged warriors, standing in victory against the pagan hordes.
No Crusader victory was ever a triumph of Christian unity. Most of Christendom sat Lepanto out. France stayed home. Protestant Europe stayed home. Even most of Italy stayed home. The Holy League was a minority of the willing. A handful of ships and a handful of men who made the decision to go. And that’s the truth.
History turns on the ones who go. Not on the ones who wait for orders. Not on the ones who whine about the hierarchy. The ones who go. Western man today stands on another shore. The pagan fleets are at pur shores again. Our clergy are cautious, our politicians are compromised, our institutions asleep.
So what now?
The Churchians aren’t going to save the civilization they despise. The foreigners, immigrants, migrants, and refugees aren’t going to save the nations they hate. The governments aren’t going to defend the peoples they have betrayed. The priests and pastors aren’t going to defend the faith they subverted.
And yet, all we need are twelve.