Our Lady of Perpetual Help

by Zsolt Aradi

Most of the original holy places dedicated to the Virgin have their replicas in the United States. Father Francis B. Thornton, in his book Catholic Shrines in the United States and Canada, says that of all shrines, those most in evidence are the shrines of Mary. There are countless commemorations of Lourdes and, more recently, of Fatima. There are special devotions to her and loving titles brought from every country in Europe are given her here in America.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston, Mass., is an important Marian shrine, though the special graces manifested there make this church important in its own right.

The original image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is the well-known work of a Byzantine artist from the thirteenth or fourteenth century and rests in the church of St. Alphonse of Ligouri in Rome. The picture came through wondrous circumstances from the island of Crete to Rome. Many great miracles have been connected with the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help since its first appearance in Crete.

The Boston Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which houses an exact replica of the original, is one of the centers of the Redemptorist Fathers. In 1870 they brought copies of the image from Rome to be enshrined in their simple chapel at Roxbury near Boston. Since then, a long series of miraculous cures have occurred on the spot, beginning with the very first day of the arrival of the copy of the image from Rome. A young girl, incurably sick, this fact being attested to by numerous physicians, was instantly healed. There were many other miraculous cures and healings in the Roxbury Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and "The Glories of Mary in Boston" by the Redemptorist Fathers relates with exactitude events similar to those of Lourdes. Many of the cures were instantaneous, and there is no natural explanation for them. The little mission church soon became insufficient, so in 1878 the present one was built and the picture enthroned in a majestic setting to express the people's gratitude.

This item 3187 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org