Our Lady of Perpetual Succour

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Tempera and gilding on wood with carved details to the frame incorporating symbols of the Four Evangelists.

Artist: Andrew Molczyk (b. 1957)
Melbourne 2000.

Collection: Corpus Christi College, Carlton, Victoria.

The Molczyk icon of “Our Lady of Perpetual Succour”, also known as “Our Lady of Perpetual Help”, is based on a miraculous 15th century Byzantine icon which resides in Rome, at the church of Sant’Alfonso de Ligouri.

History

Ancient tradition asserts the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour was originally written by St Luke. The image became popular, and was widely reproduced, in Greece in the 13th century. According to legend, the famous icon which now resides in Rome was rescued by a wealthy merchant fleeing Crete on the heels of the 15th-century Turkish invasion. A terrible storm threatened the refugees’ ship, but all aboard implored the help of the Blessed Mother, promising public veneration of the icon should they reach Rome, and the ship was saved. The merchant, however, died shortly after disembarking, and the merchant’s widow chose to hang the icon in her home. Our Lady appeared to the merchant’s daughter, requesting the promise be honoured and indicating that the icon should be displayed in a church between the Major Basilicas of St Mary Major and St John Lateran. In 1499 the icon was consequently transferred to the Augustinian church of San Matteo.

The icon was venerated there for 299 years, and many graces were obtained by faithful who sought the Blessed Mother’s intercession. In 1798, French revolutionaries marched on Rome, and ‘improved’ the Eternal City by destroying some thirty churches. San Matteo’s was one of them, and the Augustinian monks had to secrete the icon in their oratory for safe keeping. There it lay hidden, but not forgotten. Twenty years after the fact, an old Augustinian monk, who had been the last sacristan of San Matteo, informed his altar boy, Michael Marchi, of the whereabouts of the famous icon. Twenty-five years later Fr Marchi, now a Redemptorist priest, listened in astonishment as his Jesuit retreat director recounted the legend of the lost icon in one of his meditations. Fr Marchi located the icon in the Augustinian oratory and attracted the attention of Pope Pius IX, who had prayed before the icon as a child. By now, a new church had been built on the site of San Matteo’s ― the Redemptorist church of Sant’Alfonso de Ligouri. In 1865 the Pope decreed that the icon should be publicly venerated in the new church of Sant’Alfonso, situated between the basilicas of St Mary Major and St John Lateran. Two years later he solemnly crowned the icon, bestowing the title ‘Our Mother of Perpetual Succour.’ He also fixed a universal Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, which survives today as a memorial on 27 June.

Description

The icon depicts a half-length figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, holding the Christ Child on her arm. He anxiously grasps her right hand in both of His and the sandal on His right foot is falling off. While she gazes calmly at the viewer, He looks back at the Archangel Gabriel, who holds up the cross in veiled hands. On the other side of Our Lady, the Archangel Michael carries the lance and sponge.

The background is plain gold, with Greek initials painted in red beside the respective figures: Jesus Christ; Mother of God; the Archangel Michael; and the Archangel Gabriel.

Just as Jesus found consolation in the arms of Mary, so can all Christ’s faithful turn to the Blessed Mother for consolation and intercessory prayer. The seminarians of Corpus Christi were consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary by Archbishop Cattaneo, Australia’s Papal Nuncio, when the College was opened in 1925.