The church is dedicated to St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists). The Redemptorists built the church and attached buildings and staff it today.
This includes the large palazzo next door to the church, called the Alphonsianum, or in English, the Pontifical Alphonsian Academy. This is a pontifical school of higher education that was founded by the Redemptorist Order in 1949. Since 1960, it has specialized in moral theology as part of the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Lateran University. The Academy grants graduate degrees in moral theology.
The Architect and Design
The architect was George J. Wigley, an Englishman who was born in Scotland. In his day he was a significant architect, journalist, and supporter of worthy Catholic causes. He helped found the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Peterspence Association in England and France.
He built Sant'Alfonso from 1855-1859. Just before he completed St. Mary's church in Woolhampton in 1848, the only church he built in England. Blessed Pope Pius IX bestowed on him a great honor when he knighted him a member of the the Order of St. Gregory the Great.
The brick and travertine facade has welcomed millions of pilgrims through its three doors. In the style of Roman temples, visitors must first walk up a steep staircase. The facade is embellished with a rose window. Miniature flying buttresses can only be seen from above, three on each side.
Above the central door, in the central tympanum is a polychrome mosaic that depicts the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, being carried by angels. Here there is a subtle nod to sacred geometry, with the sacred image depicted inside a 'vesica,' similar to a very well-known image on display above the central west portal of Chartres Cathedral.
The 'vesica' is a geometric figure that appears in the very first proposition of Euclid in his mathematical treatise called The Elements (Book 1, Proposition 1). It is seen when an equilateral triangle is constructed -- the vesica is formed by the intersection of two circles with the same radius, where the center of each circle lies on the circumference of the other. The two circles represent the human and divine worlds, with the vesica as their intersection in which the sinless Mother of God is depicted as the throne of majesty holding the God-Man.
The Interior Features
The interior of the church is dark, with altars and mosaics that were completed and installed in the years after the church was completed. Beautiful marble altars adorn the church, from the end of the nineteenth century. The walls are painted in beautiful stencil work by a painter who was a German Redemptorist from Bavaria, Max Schmalzl (1850-1930).
The apse of the sanctuary is crowned with a mosaic that was completed in 1964, depicting Christ the Redeemer enthroned between Our Lady and St. Joseph. Underneath them is depicted a rainbow, a sign of God's covenant with mankind, recounted in Genesis 9:12-17. Underneath this in the mosaic band below are six titles of Our Lady, taken from the Litany of Loreto, with the responses: Ora Pro Nobis ("Pray for Us").
The Gothic sanctuary arch has these words in Latin taken from the Litany of the Precious Blood of Jesus. The words are decorated in red mosaic letter in honor of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ: REDEMISTI NOS DOMINE IN SANGUINE TUO ET FECISTI NOS DEO NOSTRO REGNUM ("Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord, in Thy Blood. And made us, for our God, a kingdom").
The coat-of-arms depicted in the same mosaic are of the reigning Pontiff, Pope Paul VI, as well as the arms of Cardinal Joseph E. Ritter, Archbishop of St. Louis, who was the cardinal protector and the one who helped finance the project. The mosaic, imitation of early Christian churches in Rome, brings light into the sanctuary.
The main altar is simple, with three gradines and a Gothic-style tabernacle that resembles a mini-church. Above, in a modern reliquary made of glass, the fourteenth century icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is enshrined. It was given to the Redemptorists by Pope Pius IX on January 19, 1866. Three months later it was enshrined and on June 23, 1867, it was crowned. Pope Pius IX had given a challenge to all Redemptorists: "Make her known."
A Sanctuary of Pilgrimage and Prayer
Since that time a flood of pilgrims have been drawn here to this international Marian destination. The faithful gather to pray before this miraculous image and to have recourse to Our Lady in all their spiritual and temporal needs, and to imitate her virtues, especially her purity and humility. Pope St. John Paul II came to visit in 1991.
Above the main door those who enter read the title of the icon, decorated in a mosaic with gold lettering: S. MARIA DE PERPETUO SUCCURSU, ("Our Lady of Perpetual Help"). Higher above on the facade can be seen the motto of the Redemptorist order: COPIOSA APUD EUM REDEMPTIO ("With Him is plentiful redemption"). This phrase emphasizes the abundance and generosity of redemption, through the merits won for us by the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In 1960 Pope John XXIII named Sant'Alfonso a titular church for cardinals. With the growing number of new cardinals, other churches in Rome were needed to assign to them. Sant'Alfonso was given the name SS. Redentore e S. Alfonso in Via Merulana (the Most Holy Redeemer and St. Alphonsus on Via Merulana). The first cardinal priest named was the American Cardinal Ritter.
Over the years many Redemptorist liturgies have been celebrated here, including ordinations and even episcopal ordinations. In 1967 the newly named Cardinal Protector himself was a Redemptorist, Cardinal Maurer, once the Archbishop of Sucre in Bolivia. In some ways this sanctuary is the liturgical heart of the order.
The History of the Icon
The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help has been reproduced the world over, with devotees all over the world requesting copies of the image. And thanks in large part to the Redemptorist order, there is a worldwide devotion to Our Lady under this title, and the novena is quite well known in many parishes.
The Archconfraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Alphonsus, impressed with the icon's message, has had over 5 million people enroll. Further, the Redemptorist Fathers of New York have reached thousands of souls through the Perpetual Help Center in the Bronx, NY.
The original icon was painted in tempera on hard nut wood. It measures 21. inches by 17. It is one of many copies of an earlier icon, the famed Hodeguitira of St. Luke (venerated for centuries in Constantinople, this even older icon was destroyed by the Turks in 1453).
The icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is, however, the only copy singled out by Our Lady herself for special heavenly favors. How it arrived in Rome is a long story, traveling from the isle of Crete to Rome.
The Theology of the Icon
The style is Byzantine, not classical realism as we have in the West. Therefore, the religious images visualize all creation as a manifestation of God and because of this concept of creation renewed by God, their art by-passes realist looking bodies and portrays them as a supernatural presence.
Once people appreciate this fact, the beauty of the icon opens up a new world of contemplation. The beauty and mystery of an icon are only captured in the gentle contemplation of its spiritual message. This immerses itself into the soul of the beholder and transforms that soul into the realm of the supernatural.
The purpose of the artist, who were usually monks, is not to please the human emotions, but more importantly to illuminate the soul with divine truth and direct it on to its final destiny. Three theological essentials are found in every icon: through the Incarnation, man becomes a son of God by sanctifying grace. The spiritual world becomes a reality. Through - with - in - Christ a new creation takes place.
Profound truths are revealed and affect the soul after prayerful meditation over time. Visitors contemplate the icon and slowly its spiritual secrets unfold before the soul as its great truths take hold and guide the soul to union with God.
Christ is the focal point of the image. Mary, cooperates with his Divine plan for the redemption of the world, stands strong with her faith, hope, and charity in God's great act of redemption. She is the Mother of God and the Mother of the Church.
The Hidden Meanings of the Icon
The icon is full of meaning and replete with symbols. The Christ Child is frightened by the vision of two angels in the heavens who appear and show Him the instruments of His glorious Passion. He thus runs to His mother, almost losing in His haste one of the tiny sandals that are bound to His feet.
His mother holds him tight in her arms reassuringly, lovingly, but her eyes are not directed at Him. They look not at Jesus, but at the viewer. She as a plea in her eyes to love her son and avoid sin so as to lessen His sufferings during His sacred Passion.
The little hands of Christ are pressed into Mary's as a reminder to us that, just as on earth He placed Himself entirely in Her hands for protection, so now we do the same. In heaven He has given to her hands all graces to distribute from Him for all who ask her.
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| The cotta of St. Alphonsus, kept in the sacristy |
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