The Catholic Defender: 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

Mother of Perpetual Help,you have been blessed and favoured by God.

We come to you today as your loving children.Watch over us and take care of us.

As you held the child Jesus in your loving arms,so take us in your arms.He who is mighty has done great things for you,and God’s greatest fear is that,in time of temptation,we might fail to call out to you and become lost children.

Intercede for us, dear Mother,in obtaining pardon for our sins,love for Jesus, final perseverance,and the grace always to call upon you, Mother of Perpetual Help.

Amen.

 Painted in the Byzantine style (specifically the Kardiotissa or "Passion" style), the icon depicts the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus as Archangels Michael and Gabriel display the instruments of His crucifixion.

The Christ Child looks on in fear and rushes to His mother, nearly dropping a sandal. 

 Tradition states the icon was brought from the island of Crete to Rome by a merchant. It was placed in the Church of St. Matthew (San Matteo) on Rome's Caelian Hill, where it remained for 300 years and became a site of widespread pilgrimage and reported miracles. 

 When Napoleon's army destroyed the Church of St. Matthew in 1798, the icon was moved and later forgotten in a private chapel of the Augustinian monks. It was rediscovered in the 1860s. 

 In 1866, Pope Pius IX entrusted the original icon to the Redemptorists (Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer) at the Church of St. Alphonsus Liguori in Rome, with the explicit instruction to "make her known throughout the world". 

 The original sacred image remains permanently enshrined in Rome at the Church of St. Alphonsus Liguori. Her feast day is celebrated annually on June 27. 

Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for me and grant me the confidence I place in thee. Amen.