Our Lady, Help of Christians - PRAY FOR US!

Today is the feast of Mary, Help of Christians. Happy feast day Mary!!!

She is the Patroness of Australia, and I ask you OBOBers to pray with me for my beloved homeland of Australia today - and I encourage you to lay your cares in our Blessed Mother's lap.

The feast of Our Lady Help of Christians was instituted by Pope Pius VII in 1915, in thanksgiving for the deliverance of the Holy See and the Papal States from the tyranny of Napoleon. What was really being celebrated was the emergence of the Church from the ‘darkness’ of the 18th Century and the very troubled years of the 19th Century in the Church’s history.
In this restoration Pope Pius VII did much to promote Marian piety among all. Mary, our Mother, has been venerated in the Litany under the title Help of Christians since at least the 16th Century. However, she was hailed as ‘advocate’ and ‘intercessor’ for many years before.

By 1844, there were only three Bishops in Australia. At their very first Synod in that year, they requested the Pope to declare, as Australia’s special patron, the Mother of God under the title of Mary Help of Christians with her feast to be celebrated on May 24th.

The feast was celebrated from 1844, even though it was not officially approved by Rome until 1852.The infant Church in Australia had a special reason for turning to Mary. In those early and mostly priestless days, it was largely the Rosary that kept the faith alive. Catholic Australia remained faithful to Mary, and was the first nation to choose her, under the title of Help of Christians, as principal Patroness.

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And so we pray.....

The Virgin Mary knows the sufferings
and hopes of the Church and the world:
she comes to the aid of all her children
in the daily trials which life brings to each one,
interceding on their behalf that
the darkness will not prevail over the light.
Mary, Help of Christians, we entrust to you
all people, beginning with the weakest:
the babies yet unborn,
and those born into poverty and suffering,
the young in search of meaning,
the unemployed,
and those suffering hunger and disease.
We entrust to you all troubled families,
the elderly with no one to help them,
and all who are alone and without hope.
To you, Dawn of Salvation, we commit
our journey through the new millennium
and the new century of our history in Australia,
so that, with your help, all people may know Christ,
the light of the world and its only saviour,
who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit
for ever and ever. AMEN.

Mary Help of Christians,
Pray for us.