27/06/2026
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According to ancient tradition, in the late 1400s, a merchant stole a sacred Byzantine icon from a church on the island of Crete. He set sail for Rome with the precious image aboard. Suddenly, a violent storm threatened to capsize the ship.
Desperate, the crew and passengers turned to the icon and prayed to Our Lady for assistance. To their astonishment, the storm instantly calmed, and they were saved!
When the merchant later lay dying in Rome, he begged his friend to place the icon in a church so everyone could venerate it. But the friend forgot his promise. Then came the miracle: the Blessed Mother herself appeared to the manโs six-year-old daughter and said, โTell your mother to take the picture of Holy Mary of Perpetual Help to the Church of Saint Matthew the Apostle in Rome.โ
๐ On March 27, 1499, the icon was solemnly enshrined there. For the next 300 years, the Augustinian friars faithfully served as its caretakers and guardians, promoting devotion to Our Lady. Even when Napoleonโs army destroyed the church in 1798, the Augustinians saved the precious icon and kept it safe (though it later remained mostly hidden in their monastery).
The Redemptorists were building their new Church of St. Alphonsus on (or very near) the exact site of the old Church of St. Matthew. A Redemptorist priest who had seen the hidden icon as a boy informed his superiors. The Superior General, Fr. Nicholas Mauron, petitioned Pope Pius IX for the icon so it could once again be publicly venerated in that historic location.
The Pope โ who himself had prayed before the image as a child โ gladly agreed. On December 11, 1865, he ordered the transfer and (according to tradition) told the Redemptorists: โMake her known throughout the whole world!โ The icon was solemnly enshrined in St. Alphonsus on April 26, 1866.
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Devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help reached the United States in the late 1860s. The first blessed copies (touched to the original) arrived in 1868 and were placed in Redemptorist communities in Maryland.
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In 1870โ1871, the Redemptorists in Boston (Roxbury) dedicated their new mission church to herโnow the beautiful Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Helpโand enthroned one of the first public copies there. America also gave the world the Tuesday Perpetual Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which began in St. Louis and spread globally!
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This is why we call her Our Mother of Perpetual Helpโbecause in every storm of life, she is there, ready to help us, just as she helped that ship long ago.
๐ Our Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us!
