I Consider Myself Yours, O Mother of Perpetual Help

I was happy to discover that today’s “Moment with Mary” was a text of Blessed Charles of Jesus on Our Mother of Perpetual Help. (If you are not familiar with the daily “Moment with Mary” and the International Centre of Mary of Nazareth that offers it as a free service to subscribers, do visit the Centre’s beautiful site.)
Last week, at the beginning of the retreat I preached to the Bridgettines in Connecticut, I blessed a magnificent reproduction of the original icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Gazing out at us from her icon, Our Mother of Perpetual Help graced the retreat with her presence from beginning to end.
Blessed Charles of Jesus (Charles de Foucauld) was greatly devoted to Our Mother of Perpetual Help. His favourite place to pray in Rome was the Church of Sant’Alfonso, the Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. There he renewed his consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Blessed Charles painted two images of Our Mother of Perpetual Help: one while he was living in Jerusalem, and the other while living in Nazareth.

Blessed Charles of Jesus wrote:
In a time of great sorrow, not knowing where to take refuge, fearing to be misled by the devil, I remembered the heart of the Mother of Perpetual Help, and I placed myself between her hands, like her child, like her property.
I begged her, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, to carry me, as she carried Jesus when He was a child, and to make me become, not what I would like to become, but what she herself would like for the greatest glory of her Son, according to His will, according to what she read in His heart. Since that time, I consider myself as yours, O Mother of Perpetual Help!