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Also known as
Our Lady of Perpetual Succour
The picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is painted on wood, with
background of gold. It is Byzantine in style and is supposed to have been
painted in the thirteenth century. It represents the Mother of God holding
the Divine Child while the Archangels Michael and Gabriel present before
Him the instruments of His Passion. Over the figures in the picture are
some Greek letters which form the abbreviated words Mother of God, Jesus
Christ, Archangel Michael, and Archangel Gabriel respectively.
It was brought to Rome towards the end of the fifteenth century by a pious
merchant, who, dying there, ordered by his will that the picture should be
exposed in a church for public veneration. It was exposed in the church of
San Matteo, Via Merulana, between Saint Mary Major and Saint John Lateran.
Crowds flocked to this church, and for nearly three hundred years many
graces were obtained through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The
picture was then popularly called the Madonna di San Matteo. The church
was served for a time by the Hermits of Saint Augustine, who had sheltered
their Irish brethren in their distress.
These Augustinians were still in charge when the French invaded Rome
(1812) and destroyed the church. The picture disappeared; it remained
hidden and neglected for over forty years, but a series of providential
circumstances between 1863 and 1865 led to its discovery in an oratory of
the Augustinian Fathers at Santa Maria in Posterula. The pope, Pius IX,
who as a boy had prayed before the picture in San Matteo, became
interested in the discovery and in a letter dated 11 December 1865 to
Father General Mauron, C.SS.R., ordered that Our Lady of Perpetual Succour
should be again publicly venerated in Via Merulana, and this time at the
new church of Saint Alphonsus. The ruins of San Matteo were in the grounds
of the Redemptorist Convent. This was but the first favor of the Holy
Father towards the picture. He approved of the solemn translation of the
picture (26 April, 1866), and its coronation by the Vatican Chapter (23
June, 1867). He fixed the feast as duplex secundae classis, on the Sunday
before the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, and by a
decree dated May 1876, approved of a special office and Mass for the
Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. This favor later on was also
granted to others. Learning that the devotion to Our Lady under this title
had spread far and wide, Pius IX raised a confraternity of Our Lady of
Perpetual Succour and Saint Alphonsus, which had been erected in Rome, to
the rank of an arch-confraternity and enriched it with many privileges and
indulgences. He was among the first to visit the picture in its new home,
and his name is the first in the register of the arch-confraternity.
Two thousand three hundred facsimiles of the Holy Picture have been sent
from Saint Alphonsus's church in Rome to every part of the world. At the
present day not only altars, but churches and dioceses (e.g. in England,
Leeds and Middlesborough; in the United States, Savannah) are dedicated to
Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. In some places, as in the United States,
the title has been translated Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
source:
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/mary0017.htm
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