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Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Over the last 75 years we have come to know and love Our Mother who “became not only the Mother of the Redeemer but the Redeemed as well.” She is the Mother of Christ and each one of us! We celebrate her feast day on June 27th to recall that we belong to her and that she is our spiritual Mother.
Our Mother of Perpetual Help Center is located at Holy Redeemer Redemptorist Provincial Residence in Washington, DC. The Perpetual Help Center has a long history of serving God’s people. The Redemptorists established the Perpetual Help Center on June 27, 1945, in the Bronx, New York. It was established to reach out to people who had very real spiritual needs and to bring them the message of hope in Jesus Christ and a deeper love of His Mother. The Perpetual Help Center works to strengthen devotion to the Blessed Mother under her title Our Mother of Perpetual Help. The Icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, which sits at the heart of her shrine, is a visible sign that Mary shelters us under the warmth of her mantle amidst the experiences of life. Her maternal warmth helps keep anything or anyone from extinguishing the profound love that her Son has for us.
She stands ready to listen to our joys, challenges in life, and all that we wish to convey to her. She will listen. You will not be ignored.
The Perpetual Help Center follows the teaching of St. Alphonsus de Liguori in honoring the Blessed Mother by reaching out to the poor and most abandoned. St. Alphonsus writes that we have a Mother who cares for and tends to all. Mary teaches us to sow hope and create a sense of belonging for those whom we meet and those whom we know. She invites us to prayerfully support those who need faith and renewed hope.
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Praying with the IconA monthly video series to OMPH
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O Purest Mary, O Sweetest Mary, let thy name henceforth be ever on my lips.
Delay not, O Blessed Lady, to help me whenever I call on you, for, in all my needs, in all my temptations I shall never cease to call on you, ever repeating thy sacred name,
Mary, Mary...
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Since 1866 the Redemptorists have spread devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the icon and title of Our Mother of Perpetual Help (also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help).
According to tradition, the ancient Byzantine icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help was stolen from a church in Crete, where many miracles had occurred.
The image remained in the private possession of a Roman merchant and his family until 1499, when it was publicly displayed in the Church of St. Matthew in Rome between the Basilicas of St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran.
When St. Matthew’s was destroyed in 1789, the icon was rescued and hung in an obscure monastery chapel until the Redemptorists learned that the site of their new headquarters in Rome had once been the site of St. Matthew’s, the one-time home of a miraculous icon of Our Lady.
A Redemptorist priest who as a young man had frequented the monastery chapel that displayed the icon informed his brothers where to find the image.
The Redemptorists asked Pope Pius IX for permission to move the icon to their new church, San Alfonso, which was built on the location of the icon’s earlier home. The pope granted his permission and told the Redemptorists to “make her known throughout the world.”
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In the Eastern world, religious art is seen as an extension of God’s presence in creation. Icons are much more than beautiful images: they’re meant to help us connect directly with God.
The artist who writes the icon strives to illuminate the viewer’s soul with divine truth. Above is a photo of the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help—the most widely known icon in the world. This sacred image has special importance for the Redemptorists, who were asked by Pope Pius IX to “make her known throughout the world.”
Each element of the icon has a specific meaning:- Mary’s eyes, filled with compassion and love, are directed toward us.
- Our Lady is clothed in the colors of virgins (red) and of mothers (blue). These are also royal colors.
- Jesus, depicted as a young boy, wears the colors of a king.
- The star on Mary’s veil reminds us that she is the dawn announcing the coming of Christ.
- Our Lady’s hands hold her Son securely, and her right hand directs our gaze to Him.
- The Christ Child grasps his mother’s hand as though he is frightened by what he sees.
- In His hurry to reach his mother, Jesus has almost lost one of his sandals. He became human, like us, in all things but sin.
- On Our Lady’s left and right we see the reasons for the child’s fear. On the right is the Archangel Gabriel, holding a cross and four nails. On the left is the Archangel Michael, holding a lance, a pole with a sponge, and a vessel of vinegar. This vision of the instruments of the crucifixion has driven the young Jesus to his mother’s protective embrace.
- Yet Our Lady’s gaze is fixed on us, her children on earth. She is our source of constant comfort and hope.
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Novena PrayerOur mother of perpetual help
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A novena is a traditional Catholic prayer that continues for nine days and is intended to ask for a particular favor or blessing—or to give thanks for blessings received.
The novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is prayed weekly around the world. To make the novena, pray the three prayers below (each followed by three Hail Marys) for nine consecutive days.
June 27 is Mary’s feast day under the title Our Mother of Perpetual Help, and every year we begin a special novena to her around that time. Of course, Mary is always listening, so the novena can be prayed at any time of year.
Use the image below to reflect upon as your pray each Novena.
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Behold at your feet, O Mother of Perpetual Help, a wretched sinner who has recourse to you and confides in you. O Mother of Mercy, have pity on me. I hear you called by all the refuge and the hope of sinners. Be then my refuge and my hope. Assist me, for the love of Jesus Christ. Stretch forth your hand to a miserable fallen creature who recommends himself to you and who devotes himself to your service forever.
I bless and thank Almighty God, Who in His mercy has given me this confidence in you, which I hold to be a pledge of my eternal salvation. It is true, dearest Mother, that in the past I have miserably fallen into sin because I had not recourse to you. I know that with your help I shall conquer. I know too that you will assist me if I recommend myself to you, but I fear, dear Mother, that in time of danger I may neglect to call on you and thus lose my soul.
This grace, then, I ask of you, and this I beg with all the fervor of my soul, that in all the attacks of hell I may ever have recourse to you. O Mary, help me! O Mother of Perpetual Help, never suffer me to lose my God. Amen.
Pray three Hail Marys.
Use the image below to reflect upon as your pray each Novena.
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O Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke your most powerful name, which is the safeguard of the living and the salvation of the dying. O purest Mary! O sweetest Mary! Let your name henceforth be ever on my lips. Delay not, O Blessed Lady, to help me whenever I call on you, for in all my temptations, in all my needs, I shall never cease to call on you, ever repeating your sacred name, Mary! Mary!
O what consolation, what sweetness, what confidence, what emotion fills my soul when I utter your sacred name or even only think of you. I thank the Lord for having given you, for my good, so sweet, so powerful, so lovely a name. But I will not be content with merely uttering your name. Let my love for you prompt me ever to hail you, Mother of Perpetual Help.
Pray three Hail Marys.
Use the image below to reflect upon as your pray each Novena.
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O Mother of Perpetual Help, you are the dispenser of all the gifts which God grants to us miserable sinners, and for this end He has made you so powerful, so rich, and so bountiful in order that you may help us in our misery.
You are the advocate of the most wretched and abandoned sinners who have recourse to you. Come to my aid, dearest Mother, for I recommend myself to you. In your hands I place my eternal salvation and to you I entrust my soul. Count me among your most devoted servants; take me under your protection, and it is enough for me.
For if you protect me, dear Mother, I fear nothing: not from my sins because you will obtain for me the pardon of them, nor from the devils because you are more powerful than all hell together, nor even from Jesus, my Judge, because by one prayer from you, He will be appeased.
But one thing I fear—that in the hour of temptation I may through negligence fail to have recourse to you and thus perish miserably. Obtain for me, therefore, the pardon of my sins, love for Jesus, final perseverance, and the grace to have recourse to you, O Mother of Perpetual Help.
Pray three Hail Marys.
Use the image below to reflect upon as your pray each Novena.
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OMPH SHRINE IN THE Upper Church, Philadelphia.
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OMPH Shrine in Rome, italy, at Christmas.
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OMPH Shrine in the Lower Church, Philadelphia.
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Contact Us
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Theresa Montminytmontminyredemptorists.netDirector of Mission Advancement
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Mailing Address
Theresa Montminy
Redemptorist Catholic Foundation
3112 7th Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
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