Our Mother of Perpetual Help Novena

Through the novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Mary is always ready to intercede to Jesus on our behalf, according to His Will.  We approach her as we do Him, with sincerely humble and contrite hearts.  We can count on her aid and guidance.  Mary’s last spoken words in the Gospels concerned her Son when she said at the wedding feast at Cana “Do whatever he tells You.” John 2:5



In this novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, we pay tribute to the Blessed Virgin Mary in asking for her assistance. This picture of the Blessed Mother with her Divine Son above has helped her provide strength, comfort and even miracles to the faithful for centuries!

Oh Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke your powerful name, the protection of the living and the salvation of the dying. Purest Mary, let your name henceforth be ever on my lips. Delay not, Blessed Lady, to rescue me whenever I call on you. In my temptations, in my needs, I will never cease to call on you, ever repeating your sacred name, Mary, Mary. What a consolation, what sweetness, what confidence fills my soul when I utter your sacred name or even only think of you! I thank the Lord for having given you so sweet, so powerful, so lovely a name. But I will not be content with merely uttering your name. Let my love for you prompt me ever to hail you, Mother of Perpetual Help. O Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for me and grant me the favor I confidently ask of you.  Pray three Hail Marys.

First placed in the Church of San Matteo in Rome in 1499, this picture was thought to be lost at one point after Napoleon’s armies sacked that church in 1798. Fortunately, however, it was in the care of the Augustinian fathers until Pope Pius IX ordered that the icon be given to the Redemptorist order at the Church of St. Alphonsus in Rome in 1866 for public viewing once again. Since then it has been copied and venerated in churches and homes all over the world.

Note in this picture how Jesus, while safely cradled in his mother’s arms, looks anxiously at St. Gabriel the Archangel, who holds the cross and nails for His Crucifixion. (St. Michael the Archangel, at left, holds the lance, spear, and the vessel of vinegar and gall for our Lord's Passion as well.) The Blessed Mother looks at us solemnly, perhaps as if in contemplation of her beloved Son’s future Passion and death for our salvation!

O Mother of Perpetual Help, pray for us and all the intentions we receive through this prayer ministry.