Auxilium Christianorum

During the month of May, I am publishing a series of posts based on notes made by John Henry Newman (1801-1890) for his May meditations on Mary in the Litany of Loreto. For the Latin and English texts of this Litany, please follow the link to Thesaurus Precum Latinarum.

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt.

Tecum tutus semper sum.

Ad Jesum per Mariam

[  ] References in the text to numbered footnotes are not hyperlinked but may be found at the end of the relevant text.

Mary is the "Auxilium Christianorum," the Help of Christians

St Dominic. Fra Angelico [Public domain]

Our glorious Queen, since her Assumption on high, has been the minister of numberless services to the elect people of God upon earth, and to His Holy Church. This title of "Help of Christians" relates to those services of which the Divine Office, while recording and referring to the occasion on which it was given her, recounts five, connecting them more or less with the Rosary.

The first was on the first institution of the Devotion of the Rosary by St. Dominic, when, with the aid of the Blessed Virgin, he succeeded in arresting and overthrowing the formidable heresy of the Albigenses in the South of France.[1]


1437. Fra Angelico (1170-1221). The Perugia Altarpiece, Side Panel Depicting St. Dominic.

Lepanto 1571. National Maritime Museum [Public domain]

The second was the great victory gained by the Christian fleet over the powerful Turkish Sultan,[2] in answer to the intercession of Pope St. Pius V., and the prayers of the Associations of the Rosary all over the Christian world; in lasting memory of which wonderful mercy Pope Pius introduced her title "Auxilium Christianorum" into her Litany.
Artist unknown. Appears to be based on a Venetian print by Martin Rota, dated 1572.



Pope Gregory XIII., who followed him, dedicated the first Sunday in October, the day of the victory, to Our Lady of the Rosary.

The third was, in the words of the Divine Office, "the glorious victory won at Vienna (1683), under the guardianship of the Blessed Virgin, over the most savage Sultan of the Turks, who was trampling on the necks of the Christians; in perpetual memory of which benefit Pope Innocent XI (1611-1689) dedicated the Sunday in the Octave of her Nativity as the feast of her august Name."[3]

The fourth instance of her aid was the victory over the innumerable force of the same Turks in Hungary on the Feast of St. Mary ad Nives (1716),[4] in answer to the solemn supplication of the Confraternities of the Rosary; on occasion of which Popes Clement XI (1649-1721) and Benedict XIII (1649-1730) gave fresh honour and privilege to the Devotion of the Rosary.

And the fifth was her restoration of the Pope's temporal power, at the beginning of this century, after Napoleon the First, Emperor of the French, had taken it from the Holy See; on which occasion Pope Pius VII (1742-1823) set apart May 24, the day of this mercy, as the Feast of the Help of Christians, for a perpetual thanksgiving.


[1] Against the Albigensian heretics

When the heresy of the Albigenses was making head against God in the County of Toulouse, and striking deeper roots every day, the holy Dominic, who had but just laid the foundations of the Order of Friars Preachers, threw his whole strength into the travail of plucking these blasphemies up. That he might be fitter for the work, he cried for help with his whole soul to that Blessed Maiden, whose glory the falsehoods of the heretics so insolently assailed, and to whom it hath been granted to trample down every heresy throughout the whole earth. It is said that he had from her a word, bidding him preach up the saying of the Rosary among the people, as a strong help against heresy and sin, and it is wonderful with how stout an heart and how good a success he did the work laid upon him. [Divine Office, Matins, Beatæ Mariæ Virginis a Rosario]

[2] At Lepanto, against the Muslim Turks

From this healthy exercise have grown up numberless good fruits in the Christian Commonwealth. Among these deserveth well to be named that great victory over the Sultan of Turkey, which the most holy Pope Pius V, and the Christian Princes whom he had roused, won at Lepanto, (on the 7th day of October, the first Lord's Day in the month, in the year of our Lord 1571) The day whereon this victory was gained was the very one whereon the Guildbrethren of the most holy Rosary, throughout the whole world, were used to offer their accustomed prayers and appointed supplications, and the event therefore was not unnaturally connected therewith. This being the avowed opinion of Gregory XIII, he ordered that in all Churches where there was, or should be, an Altar of the Rosary, a Feast, in the form of a Greater Double, should be kept for ever upon the first Lord's Day of the month of October, to give unceasing thanks to the Blessed Virgin, under her style of (Queen of) the (Most Holy) Rosary, for that extraordinary mercy of God. [Divine Office, Matins, Beatæ Mariæ Virginis a Rosario]

[3]  The Battle of Vienna

In 1683, the forces of the Holy League, under Poland’s King Jan Sobieski, defeated the Muslim Turks at the Battle of Vienna. When it became known that no fewer than 300,000 Turks were advancing on the imperial capital, Pope Innocent ordered that rosaries be recited in the religious houses and churches of Rome and throughout the Empire. There were special devotions at the Capuchin Church in Vienna to Our Lady Help of Christians, whose famous picture hangs there. It would become the symbol of the victory over the Turks by Poland’s King John Sobieski when he arrived on the scene after a series of forced marches. Sobieski began the forced marches to Vienna from the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, where he mounted his charger on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1683, to arrive in Vienna almost a month later. With the biggest cavalry charge in history, the Polish army hit the numerically superior Turkish force with their surprise attack so hard, the Turks panicked and were routed.


[4]  Hungary against the Muslim Turks

In the year 1716, Charles VI, Elect-Emperor of the Romans, won a famous victory over countless hordes of Turks, near Timisoara, in the kingdom of Hungary, upon the day when the Feast of the Dedication of the Church of St. Mary of the Snows was being kept, and almost at the very moment when the Guild-brethren of the most holy Rosary were moving through the streets of Rome in public and solemn procession, amid vast multitudes, all filled with the deepest enthusiasm, calling vehemently upon God for the defeat of the Turks, and entreating the Virgin Mother of God to bring the might of her succour to the help of the Christians. A few days later, (upon the Octave of the Feast of the Assumption,) the Turks raised the siege of Corfu. These mercies Clement XI devoutly ascribed to the helpful prayers of the Blessed Virgin, and that the memory and the sweetness of such a blessing might for all time coming endure gloriously, he extended to the whole Church the observance of the Feast of the most holy Rosary, for the same day and of the same rank, (as it had already been in the places before mentioned.) Benedict XIII commanded the record of all these things to be given a place in the Service-book of the Church of Rome; and Leo XIII, in the most troublous times of the Church and the cruel storm of long pressing evils, by fresh Apostolic letters vehemently urged upon all the faithful throughout the earth the often saying of the Rosary of (the Blessed Virgin) Mary, raised the dignity of the yearly festival, added to the Litany of Loretto the Invocation Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, and granted to the whole Church a special Office for this solemn occasion. [Divine Office, Matins, Beatæ Mariæ Virginis a Rosario]

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt.

Tecum tutus semper sum.

Ad Jesum per Mariam