BVM and Child Portrait

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Believed to be a replica of the original portrait painted by St Luke and taken to Constantinople by St Helena.
It is located in the Church of St. Alphonsus Liguori in Rome.
 
Yes, it’s Our Mother of Perpetual Help. My favorite Mary because my mother and her friend both had this picture in their kitchens the entire time I was growing up. There was also a novena to her that church groups used to pray, and it was extremely popular for some years, but by the 1970s it was starting to disappear along with other Marian devotions. I remember my mother driving to a quite distant church in order to find an Our Mother of Perpetual Help novena. I was pleasantly surprised last year to happen upon a parish church that was still praying the Novena after Mass.

The Redemptorists are in charge of Our Mother of Perpetual Help and they had a big anniversary Mass for her at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC back in 2016. I was fortunate to be able to attend.
 
It is my favorite Mary portrait too. I remember seeing it growing up too, but I don’t remember who in my family had it in their house. Our Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us!
 
My parish is a Redemptorist Parish, so I’m quite fond of this portrait 🙂
 
Mine too. We tend to call it ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Succour’ which I think would be better translated as ‘Help’. I know some would think it was dumbing down, though.
 
Dear Dan_Defender,

So happy to see a post on Our Blessed Mother, and it is the first post I am writing after a brief pause during Advent. Thanks for posting this Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

I do not know if St. Luke actually painted the portrait, but certainly his Gospel gives us a “portrait” in words. Pope Emeritus, Pope Benedict XVI, once wrote that Mary’s “Magnificat” in Luke’s Gospel is Mary’s “self-portrait”. Pope Benedict has a unique gift of writing that always touches me deeply.

May everyone who looks on Mary in any way, “see” by faith the gift Mary is for all of us, given to us by Jesus from His Cross, with the words:
“Behold your Mother”
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Let us hear those words as John the beloved disciple heard them and obey them, taking Mary into our lives and into our homes. Icons are special for they are called “windows into heaven”. They seem to draw us beyond the image to more than we can really describe.

My favorite Icon is “Our Lady of Tenderness”. As in this icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Mary looks directly at us, but in Our Lady of Tenderness the Baby is looking at Mary and has his tiny hand wrapped around her neck, clinging to her so closely their faces touch, and that is how tenderly they are united and how God wants to be united to us through Mary.

Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of Your Faithful, kindle in us the Fire of Your Love. Jesus, we Trust in You. Mary, Mother and Model of the Church, pray for us!
 
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Dan_Defender said:
It is located in the Church of St. Alphonsus Liguori in Rome.
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And a couple of meters away there’s the beautiful papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, housing the icon known as Salus Populi Romani.
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Merry Christmas!

Our parish has held OLPH devotion every Wednesday evening for many years.
 
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