Our Lady of Good Help

The inhabitants of Compiègne came to pray with joy in this new sanctuary. The following year, 1638, the Bishop of Soissons authorized the celebration of Mass there; and, in 1639, the Holy See granted, for seven years, a plenary indulgence to be gained there on March 25. This double favor gave new luster to Mary's sanctuary; pilgrims came in greater numbers; miracles were obtained there, and public voice proclaimed Father Boniface's Virgin as Our Lady of Good Help. At this name, so sweet, all hearts flew toward her altar. People flocked there from all parts, from the court as well as from the city and the countryside. The Pope's nuncio himself came there several times to celebrate the holy mysteries, and, following such august footsteps, the crowd pressed in every day. The Blessed Virgin responded to this trust and truly showed herself to be Our Lady of Good Help. Marvelous healings took place at her sanctuary, and all mouths celebrated them.

As this holy chapel had been built in haste sixteen years earlier, and was already threatening to fall into ruin, the Capuchins resolved to replace it with another, more spacious and convenient one. As soon as the religious order's plan became known, the Queen, the young King, the mayor, the aldermen, and all the inhabitants promised their support; and, on June 8, 1653, the city authorities, invited by the Capuchins, came to lay the first stone; the work was pushed forward vigorously, and by September 1654, everything was completed. The Bishop of Soissons came to bless it, accompanied by his coadjutor, and attached forty days of indulgences to it.

Mary rewarded, with signal favors, the zeal that all had shown for the erection of her sanctuary. A three-year-old child, Elie Lebel, lame from birth, could not even stand. His mother went to pray to Our Lady of Bon-Secours, and immediately he was completely healed. A young girl of five and a half, Marie Béjot, had an ulcer on her ankle, resulting from smallpox, which caused her to suffer neither day nor night. All the doctors had declared that the ailment was incurable. The mother had a novena of masses said at Our Lady of Bon-Secours. From the first day, the child felt better; the following day, the improvement increased; and the novena was barely finished when the child was walking and the ulcer had disappeared. The death of Father Boniface, founder of the holy c Père Boniface Capuchin friar, founder of the Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours chapel. hapel, which occurred around that time, was itself regarded as a miracle of Mary's goodness; he had always asked to die on a Saturday; and indeed, finding himself worse on a Saturday morning, he had a mass said at Bon-Secours to obtain the grace to die on that day. Around three o'clock in the afternoon, he had the litanies of the Blessed Virgin recited to him; and before the end of these litanies, he expired while responding: Ora pro me.

In 1737, the devotion to this holy chapel, although consistently maintained for a century, received a new impetus from the beautiful ceremony that took place then for the renewal of the vow that the city of Compiègne had made in 1637, ville de Compiègne Destination of his last diplomatic mission. on the occasion of the plague. This ceremony lasted three days. On the first, all the magistrates, under the guidance of the Capuchins who had come to meet them at the town hall, went in procession to the Abbey of Saint-Corneille; and from there, with all the secular and regular bodies, to Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours. There, kneeling on the steps of the altar, they pronounced the vow in the name of the entire city; the Te Deum was then sung, after which they returned processionally to Saint-Corneille. The other two days, there was high mass, vespers, a sermon, benediction, more than fifteen hundred communions, and countless pilgrims from all the surrounding areas. A contagious disease was then reigning in the city; it ended at the moment the vow was pronounced.

Two years later, in 1739 , the pious Que Marie Leczinska Queen of France, wife of Louis XV, devotee of the sanctuary. en Marie Leczinska came to Bon-Secours to offer her prayers; and in 1763, having returned there, she remained in prayer for half an hour, after which she recommended to the religious, upon leaving, to pray for her soul, and not for her body.

Following the example of the queen, one saw prostrated in this venerated sanctuary all the greatness of the century. All classes of society, people from the city as well as from the countryside, crowded every day before the holy image. Besides their individual visits, the magistrates and the principal inhabitants of Compiègne made a solemn visit there three times a year, all gathered together; it was usually on January 20, March 25, and August 16.

Thus the devotion to Our Lady of Good Help flourished without interruption, when in the month of April 1791, by virtue of the law of the National Assembly which suppressed all convents, the holy chapel was sold. The purchaser intended to tear it down; but, jealous to preserve for the city the sanctuary of its patroness, an honorable man was found who had the courage to buy it and have it served by a faithful priest.

In 1815, it was repaired and embellished, in gratitude for the protection with which Mary had covered the city in 1814 against the Prussians who wanted to make themselves masters of it; and, on April 1, 1816, the vow that the presence of the allied armies had not allowed to be fulfilled the previous year was renewed in a magnificent procession. In 1817, on the occasion of a mission that took place in the city, the holy image was carried through the streets, amidst the holily joyful songs of all the inhabitants. A few years after the revolution of 1830, the chapel retained the confidence of the faithful, who flocked there more than ever, especially during the time of the novena of Mar Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. ch 25. In 1846, Pius IX granted it the favor of a privileged altar; and in 1861, he added a plenary indulgence, not only for one day per month, at the choice of each person, but also for the feasts of the Immaculate Conception, the Nativity, the Annunciation, the Purification, and the Assumption, with an indulgence of 300 days for each visit one would make to this blessed sanctuary.

Encouraged by this testimony of interest, Christian souls gave to Our Lady of Good Help, in 1864, magnificent chandeliers with beautiful stained glass windows, where the litanies of the Virgin are symbolized; and the faithful seemed to redouble their zeal to come and offer their homage to Mary there, especially during the novena of March 25 and throughout the month of May.

Excerpt from Notre-Dame de France, by the parish priest of Saint-Sulpice

LIVES OF THE SAINTS. — VOLUME IX. 16