Mission Church Miracles

'Mission Hill Miracles' appears in the Fall/Winter edition of The Healing News - the quarterly newsletter of The Healing and Restoration Ministry at OLPH in Boston. For more information, email [email protected]

When the Mission Church opened at the end of January, 1871, the pastor at the time was Redemptorist Father Joseph Wissel. A stout and proud son of German immigrants, Wissel led a team of fellow religious who had a personal devotion to the Blessed Mother. Wissel was thrilled at the chance to place the Redemptorists’ new Boston foundation under the patronage of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and during the triduum celebrating the little church’s dedication, he told the assembly about the story of the icon that still graces Mission Hill. So, from the start, a Catholic devotion began to sink deep roots. Together with Redemptorist Fathers Timothy Enright and William O’Connor, they energized a relatively small enterprise in a sparsely populated neighborhood and built it into a thriving parish. The Redemptorists were the megaphones for Mary and it did not take long before stories came back to them about how her graces were affecting the people of Boston.

Thankfully, it was Father O’Connor who wrote the stories down and today a two-volume set of testimonials survives at the Redemptorist Archives in Philadelphia. They chronicle the 331 miracles attributed to the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston between 1871 and 1899. The very first that is recorded, however, did not occur at the Mission Church, though it helped to inaugurate the Redemptorists’ presence in the city. On February 5, 1871—less than a week after the church’s dedication, the Redemptorists gave a mission at St. James Church in today’s Chinatown neighborhood. A fifteen year-old girl came to one of the priests and told him of her “fits”—a malady which beset her several times a day, leaving her practically catatonic.   The priest “gave her a medal of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and advised her to make a novena. By this means she got entirely cured and came with a friend to express her thanks.” The first recorded cure to take place before the Mission Church’s icon occurred to the child of the Kohler family of Delle Avenue and Parker Street. A painful swelling in her ankle cursed the child’s every waking moment, but after instruction to make a novena to OLPH, and despite the interventions of the best physicians, on the second night and in the company of her family, the child stood up without aid or any sign of her prior malady.

In May of 1871 the picture that is now adorning the shrine to Our Mother of Perpetual Help was formally installed over the high altar at the Mission Church. In those days, when it was still a much smaller structure, the icon was set in the center of the sanctuary. Partly due to the throngs of people who came to marvel at it, the Redemptorists realized that a much larger church would be needed to accommodate everyone. The much grander church of pudding stone and granite was erected in 1878.  In the meantime, the stories of miracles continued. Some focused on the restoration of health, but others had unintended side effects. Some combined both. For instance, in August 1873, young David Hennigan presented himself to the fathers after making a novena and wearing the medal of OLPH to cure a deformed ear. The testimonial states that his cure was a “blessing that induced him to apply today for admission amongst the ‘Brothers of St. Joseph’ South Bend, Ind.” In Hennigan’s case, his cure was a prelude to a vocation as a brother in the Congregation of Holy Cross. Similarly, and with far more fanfare, the prominent cure of Mary Grace Hanley resulted in a future vocation as a nun. The “Hanley window” in the Mission Church today recalls this wonder. At age four she sustained an injury to her spine and legs which left a permanent deformity and crippled her for years. 

On August 18, 1883, while in the midst of the novena, she felt compelled to rise and kneel before the altar in thanksgiving. She then rose again and walked out of the church and returned home perfectly cured. The teen later became Sr. Mary of Perpetual Help, a Religious of Jesus and Mary.

The causes and effects of each miracle is unique. Some pray for a specific healing, others a conversion of heart. Some implore OLPH’s assistance in landing a job, others give thanks for petitions on behalf of others. The longings of so many over the years have simply fueled the Redemptorists’ own devotion to the Blessed Mother and encouraged them to find ways to open her graces to others.

In 1924, the Redemptorists’ rector, Father John O’Leary, requested that Cardinal William O’Connell approve the Confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Alphonsus and it was aggregated to the Archconfraternity at the Redemptorists’ mother Church of St. Alphonsus in Rome. A “Little Manual” was developed by Father Cornelius Warren, C.Ss.R., and printed at the Mission Church Press. Enrollment in the confraternity began immediately and the spiritual graces began to flow. The small donations that accompanied enrollment were eventually applied to the Redemptorist missions in the Caribbean and were largely responsible for the development of chapels scattered throughout the islands—safeguards to the faith especially in remote areas. 

Mary’s clients have included the deaf, who gathered for the first time at the Mission Church on May 23, 1937. They formed the inaugural meeting of the Perpetual Help Deaf Mute Center. All names of the members  were gathered and placed on the altar as a remembrance for both living and deceased members. A goal of the group was to increase membership and the assigned chaplain, Redemptorist Father Mark DeCoste, was tasked with soliciting from all Redemptorist parishes the names of at least three deaf Catholics to be added to the rolls at the Mission Church, a type of spiritual communion for those unable to travel to Boston. For the deaf at the Mission Church, confessions could be heard in sign language and their intentions could be written out and deposited in special receptacles. This had the effect of breaking down barriers in communication and allowing for greater closeness to Mary and her Son.  Among the many priests who beat the drum for OLPH, two deserve special mention. Father Peter Starin, C.Ss.R., who used local media to promote the large crowds already coming to the weekly novena. Consequently, the City of Boston had to create a special route along Tremont Street for streetcars labeled “Novena.” The other priest was one who had a great command of the pulpit: Father Joe Manton, C.Ss.R., who was stationed at the Mission Church for over five decades.

His pulpit oratory on behalf of OLPH is legendary (though it is captured, in part, through several of his books of sermons). In one of his sermons, he explained the rationale for Mary’s aid:

'People whose sad hearts wear the black arm band of mourning; people whose souls are pock-marked with hideous sin; people whose castled dreams have come tumbling rudely down about their heads in sudden disaster; people whose souls are tired of life’s weariness and sore with life’s wounds; people that simply have a burning love for the Mother of God—they come without end, they come perpetually, because they know they need Perpetual Help!'

To modern day believers, there is a healthy skepticism that surrounds miracle stories. But at a basic level, there is an accompanying sense of honesty in the historical connections we hold with our forebears. Their experience continues to repeat. It can even be our own:

Why they come, no man can say
But countless favors show
Small children cry to Mother
And Mother can’t say, “No.”