OUR LADY OF GOOD DELIVERANCE

 

 

 

 

              At the feet of this black Virgin, Cl.Fr. PdP and his ten-eleven poor companions consecrate themselves to the Holy Spirit under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the day of Pentecost, 27 May 1703.

 

              This statue is in stone, from the XIV° century; it had been at the centre of people of Paris' pilgrimages from ages, in so many private and public distresses along the running of the history; before this statue, there was an older one. It means that this image is one of the most faithful symbols of the veneration of Mary in Paris. The former church of St Etienne des Grés, where it was set, was quite near to the Sorbonne, to the Jesuit's college and to the houses in which PdP and companions found accommodations, at the very centre of the students'life of Paris. That explains how many pilgrims spent many hours praying.

 

              At its feet (the former statue) were used to come St Dominic, St Thomas of Aquinas, St Albert the Great: the devotion to the Rosary had been welcomed from the beginning in this marian sanctuary; later on, as the sanctuary had already this statue, and half a century before PdP, was born at the same place an important marian apostolic association for lay people, which could have been an ancestor of the Legion of Mary: Cl.Fr. and his companions knew the activities of this movement.

              St Francis de Sales was a happy pilgrim of Our Lady of Good Delive-rance, because there he had been freed from severe spiritual anguishes. Fr Claude Bernard got here his conversion; Fr Jean-Jacques Olier, the founder of St Sulpice Priests used to pray at the feet of this statue; Fr.Lib., Le Vavasseur and Tisserant had been brought up in St Sulpice'Seminary. St Vincent de Paul was too very found of praying here; the foundress of the Sacred Heart Sisters, Sophie Barrat, all the same. Nearer to us, St John Bosco wanted to celebrate a mass at the feet of Our Lady of Good Deliverance, to recommend her the poor and abandoned youth he was committed for. And a good lot of influent christians of the recent French history liked to have long praying times before the statue; and what about the constant praying presence of simple and poor people. 

 

              During the French Revolution, this statue had been bought and carefully concealed by a pious Lady, who gave it to the hospitaller Sisters of St Thomas de Villeneuve. The Sisters build for it a new chapel in their Motherhouse, to be the continuation of the parisian pilgrimage; and in fact, there are many pilgrimages along the year to come and pray Our Lady of Good Delivery. 

 

              As many statues of the Blessed Virgin, this one is black; in the antiquity, the black goddess were signs of fertility; this sign the christian art has kept to mean the physical and spiritual fertility of Mary, mother of Jesus and our mother. And so many Virgin's statues all over the christian mediterra-nean world are black. And that, from the earlier christian age.

 

              For Spiritans, who used to come and pray here, this pilgrimage means the fidelity to their roots; the veneration of Mary, the Blessed Virgin, mother of Jesus and our mother, is the very beginning of our foundation, together with the consecration to the Holy Spirit; according to the spiritual convictions Cl.Fr. PdP got along his education, he could not think of evangelical life and evangelical mission (that's serving the poor) but as the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our souls; and he couldn't conceive this availability to the Holy Spirit but under the guidance of Mary; Mary knows what means being avai-lable to the Holy Spirit, and her maternal presence is to allow us being available as well. We want, today as in the first times of our Congregation, to be faithful to the charism of our first founder with the help of Mary. May she deliver us of all what could thwart the complete gift of ourselves.

 

              This is the first Rule of Cl.Fr.PdP for the sake of Holy Ghost Community and Seminary:

 

              ALL the students will adore in a special way the Holy Spirit, to whom they have been specially consecrated.  To this they will add a personal devotion to the Blessed Virgin, through whose protection they have been offered to the Holy Spirit.