11 December 1865 was the day when Pius IX signed and entrusted the miraculous image of the Mother of Perpetual Help to the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer.
When the Reverend Father Mauron, Rector Major, became aware of the existence of this miraculous Image and of the place where it was, on 11 December 1865 he presented himself to the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX.
Father Mauron briefly told him the story of the holy icon and submitted humble requests to him to make it for public veneration in the church of St. Alphonsus.
The Pontiff of the Immaculate was moved by listening to the story of this story. Immediately he drafted his own decree ordering that the Venerable Image, hidden in Santa Maria in Posterula, be reported on the Esquiline, in the church of St. Alphonsus, which is located between the two great basilicas of John Lateran and Mary Major.
It is possible that our holy Founder St. Alphonsus venerated the Madonna of Perpetual Help in the sanctuary of San Matteo. St. Alphonsus in fact, stayed, in Rome, in 1762, when he was appointed the bishop of Santa Agata dei Goti, and for seven weeks, he lived in a house in the Esquiline quarter.
What is only partially probable for St. Alphonsus becomes almost certainty regarding St. Clement Maria Hofbauer. The illustrious propagator of the Congregation, in fact, did his novitiate at San Giuliano in Rome. Now, this house was a few steps away from the sanctuary of the Madonna.
A sweet thought that makes us contemplate St. Alphonsus and St. Clement at the feet of the Virgin who was to become, a century later, the defence palladium of their Congregation.
(Revue Sainte-Famille. Year. 1929. p. 120).
Courtesy: Facebook post IT by Salvator Brugnano
