National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor

• Weekdays 5:00 p.m
• Saturdays 11:30 a.m (Perpetual Novena)
• Sundays 9:30 a.m

• The Solemnity of Our Lady of Promt Succor Each year on January 8TH with the Archbishop of New Orleans
• Rosary Tuesdays at 8:30 a.m

1st Thursday of each month: 8:30 a.m – 3:00 p.m

About the Shrine

The National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor serves God and all God’s people as the center of devotion to the Mother of Jesus under the title of Our Lady of Prompt Succor—quick help.  The shrine is a place of pilgrimage, worship and prayer and welcomes all who wish to come to this sacred place.

Today’s National Votive Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, situated on the campus of Ursuline Academy, was erected in the 1920s and consecrated in 1928. It continues to fulfill the promise made in 1810 by Ursuline sister Mother St. Michel Gensoul to honor the Mother of God under this title. If you would like to learn more about Ursuline Academy, please click here to visit the Academy’s website.

The Shrine is sponsored by the Ursuline Sisters of the Roman Union, Central Province. The Ursulines and their generous lay collaborators strive to make the Shrine a place of welcome for all whose faith and devotion lead them to seek a place of worship, quiet prayer, or pilgrimage.

Our Lady of Prompt Succor

The statue of Our Lady under the title of Our Lady of Prompt Succor came to New Orleans in 1810. Over the following two centuries, the Ursuline Sisters have shared this devotion to Our Lady of “Quick Help” with many who pray to the Mother of God in moments of pain or need, joy or thanksgiving, or simply out of desire to live their lives with deepening fidelity and love.

History of the Devotion

French Ursulines arrived in New Orleans in 1727 and established the oldest school for girls currently operating in what is now the United States. During a period of crisis after a large group of nuns left New Orleans for Cuba in 1803, Mother St. André Madier, one of the seven nuns who remained, appealed to her cousin, an Ursuline in France whom the reign of terror had forced to leave her monastery at Pont-Saint-Esprit.

She was Mother St. Michel Gensoul, a remarkable woman of great talent and interior piety, who, during her exile in Montpellier, opened a boarding school for girls there. Fearing for the flourishing school, Bishop Fournier refused her request to leave, saying that only the Pope, then a prisoner of Napoleon, could give such a permission. One day while praying before a statue of the Blessed Mother, she was inspired to say, “O most holy Virgin Mary, if you obtain a prompt and favorable answer to my letter, I promise to have you honored in New Orleans under the title of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.”

The promise evidently was pleasing to the Blessed Mother. Two favors were granted: the letter which left Montpellier on March 19, 1809, received a reply from Rome dated April 28, 1809. The letter of the Holy Father praised her generosity and faith and approved her departure. Thus the answer was both prompt and favorable. Bishop Fournier, surprised at the outcome, asked to bless the statue which Mother St. Michel was having sculpted.