Our Mother of Perpetual Succor

Patroness of the Philippine Islands

History: Also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Feastday: June 27th

The picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor is painted on wood, with a 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.

An ancient tradition has it that the original picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor was painted by the evangelist Saint Luke. However, the more likely theory is that it was painted, not by St. Luke, but by some Greek artist of the 13th century. It's subsequent history is interesting and in a sense providential.
The island of Crete was threatened with invasion by the dreaded Turkish armies at the end of the 15th century. Thereupon many of it's inhabitants, realising the consequences of such an invasion, decided to emigrate to Italy. Among their number was a wealthy merchant, in whose possession the picture was. He treasured the picture and had a strong devotion to the Madonna of Perpetual Succor. Tradition tells of a fierce storm, which this party of exiles encountered on the trip to Italy. The survival of the entire party was attributed to the intercession of the Madonna, whose picture they reverently carried with them on the voyage. It was only through Divine Providence that he survived a wild tempest and landed on shore. After a year, he arrived in Rome with this picture.

The picture was placed for public veneration in the Augustinian Church of St. Matthew's Church in Rome. It remained there from 1499 until 1798. One year short of its 300th anniversary at that spot, history intervened. The troops of the French Revolution broke into Rome. As part of their "improvement" plan for the Eternal City, they decided to tear down some 30 churches. St. Matthews was one of them. So the Augustinian Monks removed the picture to their private chapel for safekeeping.

As time went on, most of the people who knew the history of the painting died. The portrait was largely forgotten. Finally an old Augustinian Brother, who had been a sacristan in St. Matthew's as a young man, decided to pass on the heritage of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor. He pulled aside one of the young altar boys and told him the story. Michael Marchi was too young to appreciate entirely what was being told to him at the time. It was many years later before the phrase "Perpetual Succor" came to mean anything to him. He was a Redemptorist priest when Pope Pius IX called the Redemptorists to Rome to set up their headquarters. They had bought land over the site of old St. Matthews and were building the church of St. Alphonsus.

A Jesuit priest was preaching a novena there in honor of Our Lady, and in one of the talks he mentioned the legend about the lost picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor. Suddenly Father Marchi began to remember the story the old Brother had told him 25 years before. Returning to the Augustinian chapel where he had been a server, he found the painting where it had been all along. He told the news to the Superior General of the Redemptorists.
In 1865, Pope Pius IX met with Father Mauron, Redemptorist Superior General, and with Father Marchi to discuss the Perpetual Succor story. The Pope wished the picture to be brought back to the site where it had earlier enjoyed public veneration, now the church of St. Alphonsus, and he commissioned the Redemptorists to preach Our Lady of Perpetual Succor to "the whole world." In 1866, on April 16, the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Succor was restored to public veneration.

Patron Saint of the Sick, Police, Paratroopers and Grocers.

Link: "Shrine of our lady of good help"