This picture is called an icon which is the Greek word for image. An icon
tries to convey an idea to the mind rather than portray a resemblance for the
eye. In an icon, everything has a meaning: the colours used, the lettering,
the pose, each last detail.
The picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is painted on wood, with
background of gold. It is Byzantine in style and is believed to have been
painted in the thirteenth century. It represents the Mother of God holding
the Divine Child while the Archangels Michael and Gabriel present before Him
holding the instruments of His Passion. Over the figures in the picture are some
Greek letters which form the abbreviated words Mother of God, Jesus Christ,
Archangel Michael, and Archangel Gabriel respectively.
It was brought to Rome towards the end of the fifteenth century by a merchant,
who, dying there, ordered by his will that the picture should be exposed in a
church for public veneration. It was exposed in the church of San Matteo
(St Matthew), Via Merulana, in between the great Roman Basilicas of St. Mary
Major and St. John Lateran. Crowds flocked to this church,
and for nearly three hundred years many graces were obtained through the
intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The picture was then popularly called the
Madonna di San Matteo. The church was served for a time by the Hermits of
St. Augustine, who had sheltered their Irish brethren in their distress.
These Augustinians were still in charge when the French invaded Rome (1812)
and destroyed the church. The picture disappeared; it remained hidden and
neglected for over forty years, but a series of providential circumstances
between 1863 and 1865 led to its discovery in an oratory of the Augustinian
Fathers at Santa Maria in Posterula.
The pope, Pius IX, who as a boy had prayed before the picture in San Matteo,
became interested in the discovery and in a letter dated 11 Dec., 1865 to
Father General Mauron, C.SS.R., ordered that Our Lady of Perpetual Succour
should be again publicly venerated in Via Merulana, and this time at the new
church of St. Alphonsus. The ruins of San Matteo were in the grounds of the
Redemptorist Convent. This was but the first favour of the Holy Father
towards the picture. He approved of the solemn translation of the picture
(26 April, 1866), and its coronation by the Vatican Chapter (23 June, 1867).
He fixed the feast as duplex secundae classis, on the Sunday before the Feast
of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and by a decree dated May, 1876,
approved of a special office and Mass for the Congregation of the Most Holy
Redeemer. This favour later on was also granted to others.
Learning that the
devotion to Our Lady under this title had spread far and wide, Pius IX raised
a confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and St. Alphonsus, which had
been erected in Rome, to the rank of an arch-confraternity and enriched it
with many privileges and indulgences. He was amongst the first to visit the
picture in its new home, and his name is the first in the register of the
arch-confraternity. Two thousand three hundred facsimiles of the Holy Picture
have been sent from St. Alphonsus's church in Rome to every part of the
world. At the present day not only altars, but churches and dioceses (e.g. in
England, Nottingham, Leeds and Middlesborough; in the United States,
Savannah) are dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. In some places, as
in the United States, the title has been translated Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
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