Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

This is the novena that is being offered for the longest period without any interruption in honor of Mary the immaculate virgin mother of God in this parish. The Perpetual Help novena in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary is held every Wednesday at 6:00 pm as the main novena and the day of prayer for the week and has the largest participation among the faithful. The Church has the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and uses a small statue for public blessings during the novena. A new prayer card version of the novena will be introduced from this year 2021 which has the wordings of the traditional novena translated into Sinhala more accurately according to Marian Theology to bring out its orthodox meaning.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help (also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Succour) is a Roman Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary as represented in a celebrated 15th-century Byzantine icon also associated with the same Marian apparition. The icon originated from the Keras Kardiotissas Monastery and has been in Rome since 1499. Today it is permanently enshrined in Sant’Alfonso di Liguori, where the official Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help text is prayed weekly.

On 23 June 1867, Pope Pius IX granted the image its Canonical Coronation along with its present title. The Redemptorist Congregation of priests and brothers are the only religious order currently entrusted by the Holy See to protect and propagate a Marian religious work of art. In the Eastern Orthodox Church iconography, the image is known as the “Virgin Theotokos of the Passion” due to the instruments of the Passion of Jesus Christ present on the image.

Novena devotions are held before June 27 every year. Under Pope Pius XII’s Pontificate, the image was designated as the national Patroness of the Republic of Haiti and of Almoradí, in the Valencian Country, Spain. Due to promotion by the Redemptorist Priests since 1865, the image has become very popular among Roman Catholics. The original wooden icon is suspended on the altar, measures 17″ × 21″ inches and is written on hard nut wood with a gold leaf background. The image depicts the following symbols:

• The Blessed Virgin Mary — wearing a dress of dark red, in Byzantine iconography the color of the empress, the Queen.
• The subject shows Mary looking towards the faithful, while pointing at her son, Jesus Christ who is frightened by the instruments of crucifixion and is depicted with a fallen sandal.
• The left side is Saint Michael Archangel — carrying the lance and sponge of the crucifixion of Jesus.
• On the right side is Saint Gabriel Archangel carrying a 3-bar cross and nails.
• The Virgin Mary has a star on her forehead signifying her role as Star of the Sea while the cross on the side has been claimed as referring to the Greek monastery which produced the icon.

Byzantine depictions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in art have three stars, one star each on the shoulder and one on the forehead. This type of icon is called Hodegetria, where Mary is pointing to her Son, known as a Theotokos of the Passion.

Mary has long slender nose, thin lips, and smoothly arched eyebrows, evidence of being made by a Greek artist. The veil and her face itself are rounded, indicating holiness. The size of the mother is also out of proportion to her son, a deliberate intent by the artist to show Mary as larger than life.

The Greek inscriptions read MP-ΘΥ (Μήτηρ Θεοῦ, Mother of God), ΟΑΜ (Ὁ Ἀρχάγγελος Μιχαήλ, Michael the Archangel), ΟΑΓ (Ὁ Ἀρχάγγελος Γαβριήλ, Gabriel the Archangel) and IC-XC (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Jesus Christ), respectively.

The icon has a gold ground on a walnut panel, believed to be from Crete. The Cretan School was the source of the many icons imported into Europe from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance. The gold background represents the Kingdom of God. The round halo surrounding the Virgin Mary’s head as well as details on the robes were created through Estofado, which is an artistic effect created by scraping the paint to reveal the gold background, additional effects are achieved by chasing designs on the gold. The icon was cleaned and restored once in 1866 and again in the year 1940.

• Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sinhala (PDF Document)