Perpetual Help

The original icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which is housed in Rome in the Church of St. Alphonsus Liguori (Chiesa di Sant’Alfonso di Liguori all’Esquilino) is quite old, and has a rich and beautiful history. Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira stated that “the devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help was spread in the Church by the Redemptorist priests. It is a very beautiful invocation since it expresses Our Lady’s invariable mercy toward us. Perpetual help means an assistance, an act of mercy, an act of uninterrupted piety that never ceases toward us. The word never means that this assistance will not cease anywhere, any time or for any reason. That is, even if a person is in the worst possible situation, Our Lady always will help one who prays to her.”

The following is a traditional prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help:

“O Holy Virgin Mary, who to inspire us with boundless confidence, hast been pleased to take the sweet name of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, I implore thee to come to my aid always and everywhere in my temptations, after my falls, in my difficulties, in all the miseries of life, and above all, at the hour of my death.

Give me, O loving Mother, the desire and the habit always to have recourse to thee trusting that thou wilt be faithful and come to my assistance. Obtain for me the this grace of graces, the grace to pray to thee without ceasing and with childlike confidence, that I mayest ensure thy perpetual help and final perseverance. O Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for me now and at the hour of my death. Amen.”

 

Icon: Our Lady of Perpetual Help

History (including source for prayer, above): Our Lady of Perpetual Help, History, Tradition

Source, quote of Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: Further information on Our Lady of Perpetual Help