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Our Blessed Mother has many titles. One of the most honored is Our Mother of Perpetual Help. This title is associated with the icon that was given to the Redemptorists by Pope Pius IX when he requested the Redemptorist Missionaries to make her known. As a Redemptorist, this icon is...
Mary is our focus in this edition, with a special emphasis on her representation in the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. As you may know, Liguorian and Liguori Publications are named after St. Alphonsus Liguori, a doctor of the Church and founder of the Congregation of the Most...
The Icon In May, the month of Mary, parishes hold special devotions and processions. A special procession inRome with the Icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help on April 26, 1866, marked the return of that image for public veneration. During the procession, the miraculous icon of Holy Mary of...
She’s Doing What!? A mother and her youngest daughter wrote out the Ten Commandments and posted them in their home. Not long after, the youngest reported that her older sister was sinning. The mother asked why, and she replied, “She is committing adultery.” Later, the parents had a private conversation...
Thanks to one statement in Fr. Dennis J. Billy’s article (March 2015), I can admit during the time that I was a nonpracticing Catholic, my experience of “foretasting of heaven” started. My first “intense experience of the divine” was in 2002, when I was driven to my heavenly home by...
Sidebar by Sarah Reinhard Lent is the time of year I love to hate. It’s all too easy for Lenten practices to turn into big, impossible jobs. And yet, after the overload of Christmas, there’s something about the spartan that’s appealing. The three pillars of Lent are fasting, almsgiving, and...
Christ is risen! Alleluia! Easter is the greatest celebration in our liturgical calendar. The first Easter was the day when the Lord rose triumphantly from the grave. It was the day when hope was restored, faith was renewed, and charity prevailed. The tomb was empty, and death lost her age-old...
Daffodils are emerging, blossoms are appearing on trees, and I’m due for my first bike ride of the year. It’s spring, a time of release—from the cold ground, from secret places in branches, from the dusty garage. It is also, of course, the season we celebrate Easter, when Jesus rose...
Christians keep vigils. They give us an important way to live our faith daily. They allows us to reshape time, put down the clock and encounter God. To keep vigil means that we have a purpose for watching and waiting. To be vigilant requires a level of endurance and patience. It invites us into...
Believe it or not, before Vatican II, it was generally believed that the Mother of God was not only exempt from original sin but also from the pangs of childbirth, fatigue, doubt, temptation, ignorance, and death. These human experiences, it was reasoned, were a consequence of sin, and Mary was...
Veneration of the icon means focusing our attention on a specific element, such as Mary’s face or her right hand, which points to the image of the Child—any aspect that communicates an exchange of energy, a divine presence. The icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help presents no written words...
I always enjoy reading Fr. Bruce Lewandowski’s “Plain Talk” column in Liguorian. His contribution in the December 2014 issue [on how Jesus teaches that we can be salvation for each other] was exceptionally thought-provoking. I am sharing it with my Bible study and St. Theresa Guild at church. Both groups...
The Cloud of Unknowing Fr. Dennis J. Billy, CSsR Liguori Publications $19.99 Few would dispute that our active lives can intrude upon our ability to focus when we pray. It seems twas ever thus. Seven hundred years ago, The Cloud of Unknowing was written in Middle English, a work of...
Lent appears to never end. But Easter seems gone in a snap. Some years I blink and wonder if I missed it. But in actuality, while the plastic bunnies and egg-laden trees disappear by Monday afternoon, to Christians, Easter is a fifty-day season! Think about it. On Good Friday we...
A story of how one couple follows the example of our risen Lord, even when their pain seems unimaginable. It was the phone call every parent dreads. In the early-evening hours on the last day of 2014, the police called a close friend of mine with tragic news. A driver...
Think About These… In the midst of darkness, Jesus is still the light. You don’t need collateral to borrow trouble. God gives us a face but we must choose the expression. Don’t worry about tomorrow. You did that yesterday.” Sign in a Pennsylvania cemetery: “Persons are prohibited from picking flowers except...
Lilies are the perfect flowers for Easter. Since the 1920s, when they were first introduced in the United States, they have become a symbol of Easter. For many, their strong fragrance and striking appearance are synonymous with the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord. But did you know that...
In my freshman year of high school, I attended a talk hosted by an evangelical youth group. The topic was about “almost-ers”—people who weren’t quite good enough to get into heaven and who would therefore burn in hell forever. I was fourteen! It terrified me! Who is ever good enough?...
Celebrations Worldwide Will Honor a Symbol That Once Was Lost On the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help, June 27, 2015, the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists) will begin a yearlong celebration to commemorate the restoration of the icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help to...
Back in the last century—in the days before mobile devices and the internet, before texting and webcams—my dorm room housed an instrument called a telephone. To keep long-distance calls as inexpensive as possible, my parents devised a signaling routine. I would call home in Springfield from my dorm room in...