Our Spiritual Mother: Our Lady of Perpetual Help

On the feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Lindsey Mitzel tells the story behind this popular devotion to Mary.

It makes Jesus happy when we are close with His Mother

One evening, while I put my daughter to bed, she told me that once at Mass, the priest shared that when he prays the rosary, he likes to imagine that Mary is sitting right next to him, and he is talking to her and listening to her all the while during his prayer. My daughter said that sometimes she feels like she is closer to Mary than she is to Jesus. I told her that it makes Jesus happy when we are close with His mom, and He isn’t threatened by this at all. Jesus Himself goes to his mother for comfort, and she always leads us to her Son. 

The icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Around the thirteenth or fourteenth century, a Byzantine icon was written on wood. According to tradition, it was stolen by a merchant from the island of Crete and taken to Rome. The merchant became very ill, and in distress, he shared the true origins of the icon with a friend, who promised to take it to a church. However, relishing it for his own, the friend took the icon instead to his own home, where his wife came to covet it. Wishing for the icon to be returned to a church, Mary revealed herself first to the man, and then to his daughter after he refused to move the icon.

Eventually it was enshrined in the Church of Saint Matthew in Rome. Many people visited the church until it was destroyed by the invading Napoleon in 1798. While the icon was searched for in the wreckage, for more than 60 years it remained unaccounted for, until eventually it was discovered in an Augustinian monastery outside of Rome. In 1855, Redemptorists were given the land between Saint John Lateran and Saint Mary Major in Rome, the location where Saint Matthew had originally been built — and the location Mary had initially requested the icon be moved to after being stolen from Crete. The icon was officially restored to this site in 1866 by Pope Pius IX and remains there today (CatholicCulture.org). 

The Greek symbols for “Mother of God” and “Jesus Christ” grace the top of the icon. Saint Gabriel and Saint Michael flank Mary and Jesus, holding tools of Jesus’ Crucifixion; a cross and nails, and a spear and wine-soaked hyssop. The use of gold in the background and in the halos above Jesus and Mary’s heads denote salvation and heaven. Though the crucifixion is foreshadowed, so is victory and heaven (OLPHOakland.org). 

The icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help traditionally is thought of as showing Jesus running “in haste” to His mother to be comforted after being shown the death He would die (OLPHOakland.org). We know from the Gospels that Mary is at Jesus’ Crucifixion, and that she attempts to comfort Him there (Matthew 27:55-56). And what mother wouldn’t comfort her child in his distress?

Our Spiritual Mother

While Jesus hangs on the cross, he tells John that Mary is his mother now, which the Church traditionally has understood this moment as being the moment that Jesus “gave his mother to the Church,” meaning that just as she is his true mother, she is our true spiritual mother as well (John 19:26-27). Just as she comforts Jesus in his distress and suffering, she is available to comfort us as well in our own distress and suffering.  

Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Pilgrims have flocked for centuries to venerate this holy image, understanding the importance of a compassionate, loving mother, and being comforted by their spiritual mother in the same way that she comforts Jesus in this icon. Also comforting is the prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. We can ask for her intercession whenever we need consolation, and trust that our loving Mother is comforting us and interceding for us, just as she comforted Jesus whenever He needed her. 

Prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

O Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke thy most powerful name, which is the safeguard of the living and the salvation of the dying. 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 thee, for, in all my needs, in all my temptations I shall never cease to call on thee, ever repeating thy sacred name, Mary, Mary.  

O what consolation, what sweetness, what confidence, what emotion fill my soul when I pronounce thy sacred name, or even only think of thee. I thank God for having given thee, for my good, so sweet, so powerful, so lovely a name. But I will not be content with merely pronouncing thy name: let my love for thee prompt me ever to hail thee, Mother of Perpetual Help. (EWTN.com) 

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Copyright 2024 Lindsey Mitzel
Images: Canva