Our Lady of Perpetual Help: “Make her known throughout the world!”

Almost forgotten by all, but not by Friar Agostino Orsetti, who had been a friar at St. Matthew’s Church. In his heart, fervor had not waned, and in his mind, the memory of the numerous miracles obtained through the intercession of this incomparable Mother of all the needy had not faded. Around 1850, already an elderly man and nearly blind, he befriended a young acolyte named Michele Marchi who frequented Santa Maria in Posterula chapel.
Many years later, when he was already a Redemptorist priest, the former acolyte recounted that the good friar would often refer to the sad state of the beloved image.

“Don’t forget, my son, that I am looking at her with great attention” (Father Michele Marchi CSsR)

referring to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in our chapel. “She was very miraculous. Don’t forget, did you understand?“. Friar Agostino died in 1853, without having fulfilled his desire that the Virgin of Perpetual Help be once again exposed for public veneration. At first glance, the efforts and confident prayers of this zealous Augustinian seemed fruitless.

“Make her known throughout the world“!

Only apparently, because the young acolyte, later Father Michele Marchi CSsR, did not forget! In mid-19th century, the Congregation of the Redemptorists was invited by Pope Pius IX to establish its General House in Rome. To this end, and without knowledge of the aforementioned facts, they purchased land on Via Merulana, precisely where Saint Matthew’s Church once stood.

As will be seen, it was the Mother of Perpetual Help who, through the voice of the Pope, drew this Congregation to the Eternal City. There, the Redemptorists built a convent and the Church of Saint Alphonse. One of them, studying the city area where they settled, did not take long to discover that the Church of Saint Alphonse had been built exactly on the site where Saint Matthew’s Church once stood, where the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help had been venerated for centuries.

Then, he reported this auspicious discovery to his Redemptorist brothers. Among the priests who heard him was Father Michele Marchi. He then, in turn, shared everything that the old Augustinian friar from Santa Maria in Posterula had told him about the image.

Here we can clearly see the hand of the Blessed Virgin guiding events, stirring in the hearts of her missionary sons the ardent desire to exhibit the miraculous icon once again to public veneration. They exhorted the Superior General of the Congregation, Dom Nicola Mauron, to make a direct request to the Pope with this aim. Received in audience by Pius IX, the Superior General recounted the story of the icon and presented him with the request that he entrust it to the care of his Congregation, so that it might once again receive the honors and petitions of the faithful in the very place chosen by Our Lady in 1499.

The Pope listened attentively and agreed. Later, His Holiness entrusted to the Redemptorists, through their Superior General, the mission of spreading devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help: “Make her known throughout the world”!

In January 1866, Fathers Michele Marchi and Ernesto Bresciani went to Santa Maria in Posterula to receive the icon from the Augustinians. The Augustinian fathers, in filial respect for the wishes of the Supreme Pontiff, handed over the miraculous image to their new guardians. With a solemn procession, approximately 20,000 faithful accompanied the icon through flower-decked streets to the Church of Saint Alphonse.

“Dear mother, heal my son or take him to heaven”

During the procession, the Mother of Perpetual Help interceded generously, performing several miracles. The most famous was the plea of a mother who said “Dear mother, heal my son or take him to heaven”. A distressed mother begged from her window as the icon passed by, holding her dying child aloft in her arms. Immediately the child recovered. A little further on, another mother asked that her daughter, completely paralyzed, be healed. Instantly the child regained strength in her legs, but only enough to walk. Mother and daughter went the next day to the Church of Saint Alphonse and implored: “Mary, finish what you started”! The girl emerged from there completely recovered.

The restoration of the icon

The icon had to be cleaned and restored. The task was entrusted to the Polish artist Leopold Nowotny. Finally, on April 26, 1866, the image was once again presented for public veneration in St. Afon’s Church on Via Merulana. Thus began a new phase in the brilliant history of the miraculous icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Even today, it welcomes its sons and daughters maternally at the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Thanks to the zeal of the Redemptorist Fathers, thousands of other churches were erected in her honor around the world.In 1990, the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was removed from the main altar to fulfill a request for obtaining new photographs of the icon. It was then that its state of severe deterioration was discovered: both the wood and the painting had suffered seriously due to environmental changes and due to clumsy restoration attempts.The General Council of the Redemptorists decided to contact the technical services of the Vatican Museums to carry out a general restoration of the icon that would have resolved the phenomenon of cracks and fungi threatening irreversible damage. The first part of the restoration consisted in a series of X-rays, infrared images, qualitative and quantitative analyses of the paint, and other infrared and ultraviolet tests. The results of these analyzes, and especially a carbon 14 test, indicated that the wood of the Perpetual Help icon could be easily dated between 1325-1480.The second phase of restoration consisted in the physical retouching of the affected areas and reinforcement of the structure supporting the icon. This physical intervention was limited to what was strictly necessary, because, similar to surgical operations on the human body, any restoration work always causes some trauma. Artistic analysis places the pigmenting of the painting at a later date (after the 17th century): this would explain why the icon offers a synthesis of Eastern and Western elements, especially in the appearance of the faces.In 1991, Saint John Paul II stated:> «It has been 125 years since that 26th of April, 1866, when Pope Pius IX entrusted your Institute with the diffusion of devotion to the Virgin of Perpetual Help. Since then, you have not ceased to cherish with love this Byzantine icon, which came from the East and became a beacon for the faithful who come to pray in this temple. As I wrote in my Apostolic Letter Duodecimum saeculum (1987), “the believer of today, like that of yesterday, must be assisted in prayer and spiritual life by the sight of works that seek to express the mystery without concealing it” (St. John Paul II, Duodecimum saeculum, 11), a mystery of divine motherhood which at the same time invites trust, exalts the role that the Virgin plays in the life of each believer. Mary is the mother of hope and goodness. Mother of mercy and grace. “Wishing to redeem all humanity, God placed all the value of redemption in Mary’s hands so that she could dispense it according to her will” (St. Alfonso M. de Ligorio, Ascetical Works, Rome, 109). In this icon, Mary dispenses this value with the happy announcement that the new Covenant was fully realized in her and through her is offered to all men, the firstfruits of redemption and the testimony of the extraordinary path of cooperation of the Mother of the Lord in the salvation of humanity. The Virgin’s eyes look upon people and radiate upon them the gift of divine grace” (St. John Paul II).