Our Mother of Perpetual Help

Making Her Known Throughout the World

In 1866, Pope Pius IX entrusted the original Mother of Perpetual Help icon to the Redemptorists, to protect and propagate the Marian religious work of art. “Make her known throughout the world,” was the instruction he gave to the superior general.

Prior to that decree, legend tells that the icon was stolen and hidden until the Blessed Virgin appeared to a six-year-old girl and told her that the picture should be placed at the church of St. Matthew the Apostle, a modest building and monastery between the basilicas of St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran.

For 300 years it remained at St. Matthew’s under the care of the Irish Augustinians until they moved in 1819 to the Church of St. Mary in Posterula. They took the “Virgin of St. Matthew” with them, but because “Our Lady of Grace” was already venerated in the church the picture that would become known as “Perpetual Help” was placed in a private chapel in the monastery.

The icon was rediscovered by the Redemptorists in the 1850s as they worked on building a new church in honor of the Most Holy Redeemer dedicated to St. Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the congregation. The new church was being built on the site of the former St. Matthew’s Church. The icon was cleaned and restored to be available again for public veneration on April 26, 1866.

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