www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Akathist to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

I thought it worthy of special note to mention that the Akathist authored by our own Dr Alex Roman was solemnly sung at the Uniontown Pilgrimage yesterday. May Our Lord and Lady continue to bless Alex for his good work.

http://www.ukrainian-orthodoxy.org/prayer/akathists/PerpetualHelp.htm

Nice, Alex!

I thank you for your kindness - but I only translated that Akathist which was actually authored by Fr. Roman Bachtalowsky of the Redemptorists . . .

I've authored other akathists to Our Lady, however . . . .

Alex

This Saturday, June 27th, is the feast day of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. It also marks the beginning of a Jubilee Year for the Redemptorists as they celebrate 150 years since the miraculous icon was restored to public veneration in 1866.

[Linked Image]

In preparation for the Jubilee Year, a beautiful, new book, Embracing the Icon of Love [liguori.org], has been written which includes the akathist to Our Mother of Perpetual Help.

He is a busy sort of guy! http://www.ukrainian-orthodoxy.org/prayer/aaPrayer.htm.

I'll have to order that book!

The icon is, in the Orthodox world, called the "Mother of God of the Passion." There is an Orthodox-authored akathist in honour of this icon, quite different from this one, that is listed on www.akafist.narod.ru [akafist.narod.ru] .

As I'm sure you're tired of me repeating this (and probably not only this . . .), my paternal grandmother's first cousin was the Redemptorist locum tenens of the underground UGCC, Archbishop Volodymyr Sterniuk C.Ss.R. who succeeded Blessed New Hieromartyr Basil Velichkovsky, also a Redemptorist, in 1963.

I've my father's copy of the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help beside my bed and I first learned to pray before it. Grandmother gave it to him just before he escaped the invading Soviet armies.

There is a powerful presence about the icon. When relatives once played around with a ouija board (would you believe) when I was growing up, there was a great diabolical disturbance that resulted with moving furniture and flying clothes in the room where my brother and I slept.

The frightening movements only stopped when I looked at the icon on the wall. As I tried to get up, I realized that the evil force had tied me to my bed with the clothes that had been floating in the air, having twisted them into a type of rope.

Most Holy Mother of God of the Passion, our Perpetual Help before the Throne of Your Son and our God, save us!

Alex

Wow, Alex!!! Let me share with you what happened to me!

It will be six years next month in which I experienced a diabolical attack the night before a significant event took place in my life. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt the presence of "something" very angry in my room. I crossed my arms over my chest and then this "something" jumped upon me. There was a struggle. I didn't feel scared, but I knew that what I was going through was very serious. In the room I was in was an icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. The room was too dark to see the icon, but I invoked Her to save me and visualized myself running towards Her. With that, the struggle ended.

Amazing!!

It was St Louis de Montfort who once wrote that the demons just can't put up with someone with a devotion to the Most Holy Mother of God.

St Jonah Atamansky of Odessa (+1924) who prayed many all-night vigils, was once praying to the Mother of God in church behind the iconostasis. He then saw what looked like a small child walk towards him.

The "child" stood before him and said, "So you are praying to her, are you? To anyone, but not to her! I'll show you . . . "

He was renowned for exorcising evil spirits at his home which then tried to set fire to it. Whenever his Presbytera saw people bringing a possessed person to her husband, she quickly hid all the flammable pieces in her kitchen in advance . . .

Let us always guard ourselves with prayer to and the images of the Most Holy Mother of God!

Alex