Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This title belongs to a devotion to Jesus’s Mother Mary which centered around a certain icon that drew many pilgrims in Rome starting in the Renaissance era. The image later reappeared miraculously after the French destroyed the church that housed it in 1812. You can see the lovely icon of Mary and Jesus below:
Mary said in the Bible (Luke 1:48), “Behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” Jesus, though He had no need of her, chose Mary to be both His Mother and our maternal intercessor with Him. He always honored her, and He wishes us to honor her too. As the title Our Lady of Perpetual Help or Succor emphasizes, we can always turn to Mary for aid.
Today is also the feast day of St. Cyril of Alexandria, a great champion against heresy and one of the Greek or Eastern doctors of the Church. St. Cyril was preeminent at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD), which defined the title of Mary as Theotokos or Mother of God. Both heretics and orthodox Christians at the time understood that the theology concerning Christ and the theology concerning His Mother were linked together. Thus, by holding up Mary as Theotokos, St. Cyril and the other Council Fathers reaffirmed that Jesus is both truly God and truly man, one person with two natures.
As St. Cyril so clearly understood, we honor Mary because we honor Jesus—and because Jesus honored her too. At the Wedding at Cana (John 2), Mary’s intercession moved Christ to help the bride and bridegroom by changing water into wine. So now we ask for Mary’s aid in her role as Our Lady of Perpetual Help, that she might intercede for us with her Son just as she assisted the bride and bridegroom at Cana:
“[MyCatholicPrayers] 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.”
(This article was originally published last year.)
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Author: Catherine Salgado
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