The Basilica of Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, celebrates 150 years of veneration of the icon in Paris on November 8. An icon traditionally attributed to Saint Luke

Among the six basilicas in Paris is Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours, on boulevard de Ménilmontant in the 11th arrondissement.
The icon of Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours was installed here on November 8, 1874, long before the shrine was elevated to the rank of Minor Basilica by Paul VI in 1966. This year, the parish is planning three days of celebrations to mark 150 years of veneration of the icon in Paris.
But the original story of the icon, full of twists and turns, goes back much further.
Traditionally, it is attributed to Saint Luke, the evangelist to whom we owe so much. On discovering the finished work, the Virgin Mary is said to have told him: "My help will always accompany this image". The letters above the Virgin's head proclaim her "Mother of God" (Theotokos in Greek), a term attributed to Mary in 431 by the Council of Ephesus, which professed the two human and divine natures of Jesus and affirmed that Mary is the "Theotokos".
As early as 444, a reputedly miraculous icon of the Mother of God from Jerusalem was presented to the Roman emperor Theodosius II.
In 451, in Constantinople, his sister St. Pulcheria had a church built to display it for the veneration of the faithful. The icon was then the object of a weekly procession and received numerous graces.
It was venerated in Constantinople until the fall of the Byzantine Roman Empire in 1453.
Thanks to the miracles attributed to it, the icon was widely copied, notably by the monk Lazarus in the 9th century.
He is said to have added the two Archangels Michael and Gabriel, on either side of the Virgin, presenting Christ with the instruments of the Passion. The Byzantine-style representation we know today dates, according to historians, from between the 10th and 14th centuries.
The original was lost, but a stolen copy kept the devotion alive.
In 1453, the church where the icon was venerated burned down and the original was lost for good. But an unexpected turn of events kept the devotion alive.
In 1496, a Genoese merchant en route to Rome stole a copy of the miraculous icon from Crete.
Sailors credited the icon with having survived a shipwreck.
Hence the name Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
In any case, the painting remained in the house of this Roman merchant for several years until 1499, when it was found in the church of St. Matthew in Rome, located in Via Merulana.
According to the annals of this church, it was thanks to a request made to her father - the famous merchant - by his six-year-old granddaughter. In a dream, she heard Mary tell her that the icon had to be transported to the Church of St. Matthew in Rome.
It was entrusted to the Augustinian friars in charge of St. Matthew's Church.
It was venerated there until the church was destroyed in 1798 by Bonaparte's army, during which time it was hidden in the chapel of the Monastery of St. Mary in Posturela.
In 1864, it was donated by Pope Pius IX to the Redemptorist congregation and placed in St. Alphonsus church, rebuilt on the site of St. Matthew church.
In May 1866, Pius IX came to pray at the new sanctuary and instructed the Redemptorists to spread the cult of the image throughout the world.
Saint Charles de Foucault helped spread the devotion, naming the gardener's hut he lived in at Nazareth the "Hermitage of Our Lady of Perpetual Help" in 1897.

Prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help

"O holy Virgin Mary, who to inspire us with boundless confidence, wished to take the sweet name of Mother of Perpetual Help, we beg you to help us at all times and in all places, in our temptations, after our falls, in our difficulties, in all the miseries of life and especially at the moment of our death.
Give us, O charitable Mother, the thought and the habit of always turning to you, for we are sure that if we faithfully invoke you, you will be faithful to help us.
So obtain for us this grace of graces, the grace to pray to you unceasingly and with the confidence of a child, so that, by the virtue of this faithful prayer, we may obtain your perpetual help and final perseverance.
Bless us, O tender and helping Mother, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
Amen."