• Size: 10.5"H x 8"W x 1"L

• Material: bonded stone

• Type: Precision Museum Store Company replica/reproduction wall plaque

• Weight: 4.2 lbs, ship wt: 7 lbs, ship box: 14x10x9

Our Mother of Perpetual Help is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary after a 15th century Byzantine icon painted in gold. The earliest written account about the image is from a Latin and Italian plaque that was placed in the church of Saint Matthew where it was first venerated by the public in 1499. The painter of the icon is unknown, but according to legend, the icon was stolen by a merchant from Crete who was sailing to Rome. The merchant supposedly sailed and hid the icon and while traveling on sea, and a storm hit hard and the sailors prayed to the icon for help. When the merchant arrived in Rome, he fell ill and asked for another merchant friend to find a church where the icon would be venerated as his dying wish. The merchant then confided to his wife about the icon. Upon seeing the beautiful icon, the merchant's wife refused to give it to the church but instead hung it in her home. Later on, the Virgin Mary appeared to the merchant's daughter who asked that the icon be turned into a parish for veneration. The Virgin Mary indicated to the little girl that she be placed between the basilicas of St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran. The wife then went to the Augustinian Friars to whom she gave up the icon. On March 27, 1499, the icon was transferred to the church and the icon was venerated there for 300 years. In 1798, the governor of Rome, General Massena ordered several churches in Rome closed and destroyed. St. Matthew was one of these churches. The perpetual help icon was taken by the Augustinian fathers, who moved to a nearby church, St. Eusebius. Later on they moved to Santa Maria Posterula where the icon was moved to a side altar. Pope Pius IX had invited a group of priests called the Redemptorists to set up a Marian house of veneration in Rome. They stationed in Via Merulana, not knowing that it was once the church of San Mateo and shrine of the once-famous icon. One day, a Redemptorist father heard stories of the icon and the church that it wa