| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Our Lady of Prompt Succor
by John O’Connell
French Ursulines, with the aid of King Louis XV, established in 1727 an Ursuline Mon astery in New Orleans. The Ursulines’ main apostolate is Catholic education. In 1763, Louisiana became a Spanish possession and Spanish sisters came to assist at the mon astery. How ever, when Louisiana became French territory again in 1800, the Spanish sisters fled to Cuba, fearing the anti-clericalism of the French government. Bereft of the Spanish sisters, the Ursulines in New Or leans needed more sisters to continue their apostolic labors. In 1803, Mother St. Andre Madier requested assistance from her relative in France, Mother St. Michel, to come to New Orleans with religious reinforcements.
The religious persecutions in France unleashed by the godless French Revolution had forced Mother St. Michel from her Ursuline Monastery. At the time Mother St. Andre wrote Mother St. Michel, she was running a Catholic boarding school for girls. Mother St. Michel consulted her bishop, who did not want to lose such a zealous worker. Bishop Fournier declared that only the pope could give her permission to undertake such a work. Mother had to petition the Holy Father as to his will in this matter. It seemed impossible that the Holy Father would even receive the letter because the pope was being held hostage by Na poleon.
Obeying an interior impulse, Mother St. Michel wrote the Holy Father and prayed to the Blessed Mother:
O most Holy Virgin Mary, if you obtain for me a prompt and favorable answer to this letter, I promise to have you honored at New Orleans under the title of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.
Mother sent her missive to the pope on March 19, 1809 and remarkably received a reply on April 29, 1809. The pope had granted her request. Mother St. Michel, in thanksgiving and to keep her promise to the Holy Virgin Mary, commissioned a statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor holding the Infant Jesus. Bishop Fournier, recognizing the hand of God in these events, blessed the statue.
When Mother St. Michel and several postulants came to New Orleans on December 31, 1810, they brought the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor with them. The Ursuline sisters placed the statue in their chapel. Since that time, Our Lady of Prompt Succor has bestowed numerous favors on those who have sought her assistance, including two spectacular manifestations of her powerful intercession.
In 1812, a great fire threatened the Ursuline Mon astery. A lay sister brought the statue to the window and Mother St. Michel fervently prayed: “Our Lady of Prompt Succor, we are lost if you do not come to our aid.” Suddenly a change in the wind turned the fire away, saving the monastery from certain destruction.
Another prodigious example of Our Lady’s intercession occurred at the famous Battle of New Orleans in 1815, fought shortly after the War of 1812 had ended. Many of the faithful, including wives and daughters of the American soldiers, gathered in the Ursuline chapel, spending the night preceding the battle in prayer before the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. They asked Our Lady that General Andrew Jackson’s troops would prevail over the British forces, thereby sparing New Orleans from the devastation accompanying a British invasion of the city. General Jack son and his 200 men won a remarkable victory over a superior British force in a battle that lasted twenty-five minutes. Relatively few American soldiers lost their lives in the battle. Af terwards, General Jackson came to see the Ur sulines to thank them for their prayers and for their charity in nursing soldiers were wounded in the battle.
It is customary for devout citizens of New Orleans to gather to pray before the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor whenever a hurricane threatens New Orleans. They know they can depend upon Our Lady’s succor and her promptitude. Our Lady of Prompt Succor, ora pro nobis.
John O’Connell is the Editor of The Catholic Faith magazine.