The Story of Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Our Lady of Perpetual Help (also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Succour) is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary as represented in a celebrated 15th-century Byzantine icon also associated with the same Marian apparition.
The icon has been in Rome since 1499, and is permanently enshrined in the church of Sant’ Alfonso di Liguori, where the official Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help text is prayed weekly. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, this artistic iconography is known as the Virgin of the Passion or Theotokos of the Passion due to the instruments of the Passion present on the image.
Due to the Redemptorist Priests, who had been appointed as both custodians and missionaries of this icon by Pope Pius IX in 1865, the image has become very popular among Roman Catholics in particular, and has been very much copied and reproduced. Modern reproductions are sometimes displayed in homes, business establishments, and public transportation.
On 23 June 1867, the image was granted a Canonical Coronation and its official recognition of the Marian icon under its present title. The Redemptorist priests are the only religious order currently entrusted by the Holy See to protect and propagate a Marian religious work of art.
The feast day of Our Mother of Perpetual Help is celebrated on June 27, with novena devotions held every Wednesday. Under Pope Pius XII’s Pontificate, our Mother of Perpetual Help was designated as the national Patroness of the Republic of Haiti and Almoradi, Spain.