In 1920, the same year that Karol Wojtyla, the future Polish Pope Saint John Paul II, was born, the Red Army swept over the fledgling Polish republic. Between August 14 and August 20, 1920, the battle of the Vistula took place. But the Polish troops led by Marshal Jozef Pilsudski finally forced the terrifying Red Army to retreat. On the Polish side, there were fewer than 200 dead!
This victory was seen as a true miracle, with incalculable historical consequences: it stopped the western advance of Bolshevism at the bank of the Vistula River. How far would it have gone otherwise? Since the battle occurred during the celebrations of the Assumption of Mary, the victory was automatically attributed to the Virgin.
In Poland, Mary is undeniably "Our Lady of Victories." She presides over all the rebirths of this constantly threatened nation. She is the mainspring of all the bursting forths of Poland. Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote: "Our faith and the honor we pay to the Blessed Mother is the foundation on which we can rebuild everything else."
The Marie de Nazareth team