As Redemptorists, we celebrate in a special way today. When St. Alphonsus Liguori founded the Congregation in 1732, he placed his religious family under the patronage of Mary, the Immaculate Conception.
In 1854 when Pope Pius IX solemnly declared the doctrine of Mary's sinlessness from the moment of her conception, St. John Neumann, himself a spiritual son of St. Alphonsus, was present for the occasion.
A few years later, in 1866, Pope Pius entrusted the holy and miraculous icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help to the Redemptorists, asking them to "make her known throughout the world."
Today, we continue to ask Our Mother Mary and all our Redemptorist saints and blesseds to pray for us and our world.
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