OUR  MOTHER 

OF  PERPETUAL  HELP

  

Today we Redemptorists celebrate the 150th Anniversary of being asked to promote the image, the ikon, the picture, of Our Mother of Perpetual help.

In May of 1866 Pope Pius IX gave us the charge to do that.

We don’t know how old the ikon is - but we do know it goes back before the 1400's - to the Island of Crete - where people prayed to Mary in front of this picture - for some time. How long? We don’t know for sure.

It was stolen and smuggled on board a ship and went to Rome. It made it. We know that other images of OLPH made it by ship to the United States in the late 1860’s. We also know that images of OLPH sunk to the bottom of the sea on the Andrea Doria.

Back to the earlier story ....

In Rome, it stayed in someone's home for a while - till as the story goes, "... our Blessed mother herself appeared to the little girl of the household and told her that she wished her picture to be placed in a Church. She even designated the place - 'between my beloved Church of St. Mary Major's and that of my beloved son, St. John of Lateran.'" [1]

We have evidence that it was placed in St. Mathew’s Church in Rome on March 27, 1499 - for veneration.

For 3 centuries - that’s longer than the present 150 years - this Church and this picture was one of the places in Rome where people went to pray to Mary for help.

Mary is not God - yet we ask her to ask Jesus for help. Read the story of the wedding feast of Cana in the Gospel of John 2: 1-12. Those who think prayers of petition to Mary was a later invention of the Catholic Church - have to face Mary and Jesus in this story in the gospel of John - from the Johannine Community - dated to around 100. [2]

I’m from Our Lady of Perpetual Church in Brooklyn, so I saw people since I was a little boy - praying at Mary’s Shrine.

The other night at our anniversary O.L.P.H. service,  I said I was a candle boy - dealing with the candles people lit in prayer and petition to Mary. So I saw that. I was also an altar boy. I also became a Redemptorist, so I saw lots of people in prayer before Mary’s shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help.

 I see people going over to the shrine of Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help here at St. John Neumann as well as St. Mary’s.

So we Redemptorists are quite proud of promoting this image of Mary - which says run, don’t walk, to Mary’s presence and ask for help.

And Jesus ran to Mary - as the picture points out - even if you lose your shoes or sandals.

I have always been interested in the work of Eric Bern who is a founder of transactional analysis.  It’s basic premise is that we have 3 modes - 3 states we can find ourselves in: that of the child, the adult and the parent. [3] 

The child is the emotional side of each of us. When in fear, and trembling, and we don’t know where to run, we want our mom. We bite our nails, we suck our thumb, like every little kid.

I think that is the essential power of this image of Mary.

Run, jump, climb into the arms of Mary - no matter how old or how young we are.

The picture, the painting, is a pieta - and the Jesus in Mary’s arms can be the Christ child at Nazareth - or the dead adult Christ at Calvary.

I am proud to proclaim that story again and again - as the Pope told us to do in 1866.

I remember being stationed with Father Matt Meighan in Most Holy Redeemer, on the lower East side of Manhattan. He spent a good bit of his time promoting - going around and pushing parishes and churches - to have an image of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in their churches.

He was happy to say he did this not only all around the USA - but also Ireland.

And I know the Irish Redemptorists promoted this image of Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help in India and the Philippines and on and on and on.

I’ve done a lot of work on the road - and so I’ve been in many, many churches and have seen this image of Mary everywhere.

That tells me that we have done our job.

Once more I’m pushing this image of Mary - Amen.

NOTES

[1] Novena in Honor of Our Mother of Perpetual Help booklet, "History of the Miraculous Picture," page. 24, published by The Redemptorist Fathers, copyright, 1948 by the Redemptorist Fathers, Perpetual Help Center, 294, East 150 Street, Bronx, New York, 10451

[2] The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Article, "The Gospel According to John, by Pheme Perkins, page 949

[3] Dr. Eric Bern, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy; Thomas A. Harris, I'm OK - You're OK, Harper and Row, 1967