The Story of the Mother of Good Counsel The story of our Mother of Good Counsel begins near the northwestern border of the small country of Albania. Current news stories speak of ethnic Albanians (primarily Mohammedans) and ethnic Serbians (primarily Christian) fighting each other – and killing each other – in much the same way as they have done for many centuries. But what are they really fighting about? Well, the history of the fighting in that region – and the story of the miraculous image of the Mother of Good Counsel ran amazingly close together for centuries. Albania is a country strategically located on the Strait of Otranto. It is bordered by the Adriatic and Ionian seas to the West, by Greece on the South, by the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on the West, and by Serbia and Montenegro on the North. In the northwestern corner of Albania lies the small city of Scutari (which is now called Shkoder), which takes its name from the lake upon which it was built. It was from out of this city that the image of Our Lady, which would be venerated under the invocation of Mater Boni Consilii, was first made known. Pious legend proposes that the image of Our Lady and the Child Jesus, which came to be known as the Mother of Good Counsel, appeared in Scutari at about the same time the Holy House was transported by angels from Nazareth, first to Dalmatia (1294 A.D.), and subsequently to Loreto Hill in Italy. The image of Our Lady, it is claimed came miraculously to Scutari by way of the angels as well. Certainly the Catholic Faith was not new to Albania when Our Lady decided that her image of the Mother of Good Counsel would take up residence in Scutari. In the first century A.D., Saints Paul and Andrew evangelized these shores of the Adriatic, and the faith flourished there for centuries despite the constant threat of attacks from both sea and land. At one time or another, Albania was attacked from the sea by the Goths, the Bulgars and the Normans – and from the land by the Slavic tribes from the East and Moslem hoards from the South. As the 13th century drew to a close, the country was divided up by Naples, Greece and Serbia, and the governance of the people left in the hands of powerful families of nobility whose allegiance went to whichever power held sway over them at the moment – and allegiances were all too often bought and sold like chattel. When the 14th century opened, Mohammedan forces under Ortogrul began to attack the Byzantine empire with determination. Like a plague they poured into Asia Minor and captured all of the major cities without a serious defeat. Once crossing the Dardanelles they established their new capital at Adrianople, from which they continued their invasion of the Balkans. By 1361, the miasma of Mohammedanism had spread over nearly the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, and they invaded Albania, capturing the city of Kroia. 71 years later, after making several successive forceful forays deep into the country, in 1432, the Turks were overrunning the small and divided nation. 1 The Four Princes John Castriota, Lord of Kroia, was a prince by birth and one of the most powerful leaders in Albania. It fell upon him to stop the Moslem hoard. In an effort to forestall the devastation, he negotiated a temporary settlement with the Mohammedans. All he had to do to avoid destruction was to turn his four young sons, Repos, Stanitza, Constantine and George, over to the infidels as hostages. The Mohammedan leaders knew from experience that their own religious beliefs and depraved customs were not capable of producing warriors as brave and courageous as the Christians. Believing they could pervert the Christian boys by raising them as Mohammedans, and teaching them to hate their families and the Catholic Faith, they took many thousands of such captives and raised them in an atmosphere of strict discipline far from the Turkish court. As they grew older they were taught the skills of warriors and became part of an elite military unit, the janizaries, made up of Christian boys who had been turned to Mohammedanism. The young Albanian princes were thought to be exceptional by their captors, and they were chosen to be members of the elite praetorian guard. So convinced were the Turks that the youths could be perverted in their faith by threats and allurements that they were taken to Adrianapolis, to the court of Sultan Amurath II, who ruled the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan Amurath When the four sons of John Castriota were brought before the sultan, the three older boys made it clear they were not interested in furthering Islam. They were placed in chains, sent to prison, and slowly poisoned to death. George, the youngest, at age 9, was thought to be young enough to be molded to suit the purposes of the sultan. As it was the intent of his captors to integrate him into the Mohammedan faith, he was circumcised and placed among the intended janizaries to be trained and educated. So much did the young Prince George stand out from those around him that he found great favor with Amurath II. The sultan decided to provide him with the best possible education and had him trained alongside his own sons. He was thoroughly educated in the art of war and learned to speak Italian, Turkish, Arabic, and Slavic. As he grew into manhood and displayed uncommon courage and talent, he won the total confidence of Amurath II. Because of this trust of the sultan, and because of his princely birth, George received the title of Alexander the Prince – in Turkish, Iskender Bey. Among the Albanians he thus became known as Scanderbeg. The Prince became a general in the sultan‟s army before he reached the age of twenty and with great zeal devastated any armies that dared to come against the Turkish empire. In 1443, after twenty years of captivity, Scanderbeg had sufficiently convinced the sultan of his loyalty. The sultan, for his part, had been planning the invasion of Hungary, and appointed the Albanian prince to the office of bey generalissimo, which meant that he would be going to war against Janos Hunyadi, the brave Catholic defender of that country. The story of what happened next is wonderfully told by João S. Clá Dias, in The Mother of Good Counsel of Genazzano (Western Hemisphere Cultural Society: 1992; pp. 50-51): The Moslem army was comprised of Greek and Slavic soldiers and as many other peoples as the sultan could enslave, all under forced regimentation. Many were Catholics who but awaited the right moment to free themselves from the Ottoman claws. These latter found themselves disheartened with fear in the painful exigency of having to fight against their brothers in the Faith. Scanderbeg hated the infidels‟ yoke more than anyone else. In the proposed invasion of Hungary, he saw the providential moment to free himself and all those who wished to follow him. Thus, with some three hundred Catholic Albanians who were to be thrown into the fight against the troops of Hunyadi, he set about making a plan that would free them all. Eighty thousand soldiers under the command of Schahim Pasha advanced against the Magyars. Schahim Pasha was a bully who boasted with the arrogance and haughtiness proper to infidels: “My sword is a cloud that pours blood instead of water.” Hunyadi‟s Catholic troops numbered just twenty thousand. 2 On a cold November night, near Nish, the Hungarian vanguard caught sight of the heterogeneous Turkish horde. The warriors of the Cross silently eyed their enemy until the moment Constable Hunyadi joined them and gave the order to attack. Great shouts of enthusiasm resounded on the battlefield as the crusader‟s cavalry hurtled forward in a furious charge. Clouds of arrows filled the sky. Taking advantage of the confusion of the first clash, Scanderbeg and his followers passed over to the side of the followers of the Cross of Christ. The first outcries of the Turks wounded by the Hungarians were joined by furious curses of hatred when they saw, to their amazement, that their own bey generalissimo was fighting side by side with Hunyadi. A tremendous confusion ensued. The Hungarians, fighting with increased strength, won the battle. Thirty thousand Moslems lay dead on the field and four thousand were taken prisoner. Among the captives was Amurath‟s secretary of state with his retinue. When he was discovered among the prisoners, Scanderbeg forced him to write and sign a firman [a royal order or mandate]. This document ordered, in the sultan‟s name, the Turkish government of Albania to hand over the government to the person presenting the document. With the document in hand, Scanderbeg had the secretary and his attendants put to the sword, thus rewarding them with the same fate that had befallen his brothers and servants some twenty years before. Invoking the protection of the Blessed Virgin, Scanderbeg and his Albanians rode seven days and nights to reach Kroia. The seventh night was already extending its mantle of stars over the sky when they entered the city. Once in the city, Scanderbeg secretly met with the most important Albanian residents, who promised to help him. As dawn broke, he entered the castle of the Turkish governor. Upon reading the document signed by the sultan‟s secretary, the governor surrendered the stronghold without suspecting anything amiss. The following evening, Scander-beg and his Albanians entered the fortress and killed all the Mohammedans.