Our Lady of Perpetual Help

Picture Taken: October 5th, 2009
Made of Wood and Painted over

I took this picture today before school started, I have always wanted to take a picture of this because it is just so beautiful! This picture hangs in front of the office at my school, and I pass by it everyday. I think it's the best picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help that I have ever seen. I'm not sure who the artist is, but I'll try to find out.

The Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is on June 27th.

"The picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is painted on wood, with background of gold. It is Byzantine in style and is supposed 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 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 pious 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, Via Merulana, between 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"

- From the “New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia”

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