This program is brought to you by the Valentino family in loving memory of Mary Ann Valentino.

And by support from Craig Mundie in loving memory of his wife of 52 years, Marie Carr Mundie.

Funding also comes from the WYES Producers Circle, a group of generous contributors dedicated to the support of WYES local productions.

[Music] New Orleans, Louisiana is a city known for its beauty, culture, soul, and a history of surviving the unsurvivable.

Great fires, wars, epidemics, pandemics and storms of biblical proportion.

But what if her resilience is nothing short of divine and stronger together includes the intercession of Mary?

At the hospital, we were praying to Our Lady to give us our son back.

The mother of Jesus.

All the doctors repeatedly asked, how are you alive?

Who many believe When she was reexamined, they declared it a miracle.

Has sped to the city's aid.

Time and time again.

This is her home and its remarkable story.

A Place of Hope.

The National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

Through the years, the people of our Archdiocese have appreciated the prayers and love of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

Each year, for hundreds of years, people of all ages, races, and even religions have gathered on January 8th to thank the patron saint of the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans.

For the past century, that Mass has been held here next to Ursuline Academy, the oldest continually running girls school in the country, at the Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

We are welcoming people who are hopeless.

They come and find hope.

We're welcoming people who are desolate.

They find comfort.

That's the mission of this shrine.

You believe it was Our Lady's intercession that protected your father?

Yes, ma'am, I do.

Yeah.

I'm not Catholic, I am Baptist.

I think when you feel that you need that inner peace, you don't have to do anything.

Just come and sit.

It has a being almost of giving energy to you and a source of joy and a source of hope and a source of light in every darkness.

The Shrine has just been a special place within our family.

It's very diverse.

And when I say diverse, what the sisters envisioned 300 years ago was, you know, how do we cross all lines and serve everyone?

The sisters synonymous with the shrine are the Ursuline nuns, founded in 1535 by Saint Angela Merici in Italy.

Their mission?

Defined by a single Latin word: serviam, service.

In New Orleans, that service began in 1727, when 12 Ursuline nuns arrived from France to help run the military hospital and educate the young girls, including the native, free women of color and enslaved girls.

We're very grateful to the Ursuline sisters who came to provide education and health care and social services for so many people.

Our history is deeply rooted in them.

The Ursulines have been here since the beginning, bringing with them faith, courage, service and a devotion to Our Lady.

Two statues in particular decorate and predate the shrine.

One, Our lady of Prompt Succor, looms large above the altar.

The other known as Sweetheart and tiny by comparison, but no less revered, stands watch over the daily petitions.

Sweetheart came first.

This sweetheart statue comes from the west of France.

It was found in the attic by a sister whose name was Mother San Felicite.

The late Sister Donna Hyndman recalls the story.

So she picked it up and dusted it off and brought it to her room and it became the object of her devotion.

That was 1785.

At the time, the French nun who found her wanted to join her sisters in New Orleans, but she needed permission from the Spanish king since the city was then under Spanish occupation.

After repeated setbacks, she made a deal.

Oh Mary, you shouldn't be in the attic.

If I get to come to Louisiana, I'm going to bring the statue and have you honored there.

The next day, word came that the king had given the permission.

And the nun kept her promise, bringing the statue to the old Ursuline Convent on Chartres Street.

So that would have been in the French Quarter.

Not too long after that along comes this huge fire.

Shrine historian Mary Lee Berner Harris sets the stage for what many believe resulted in an unexpected twist of fate.

This was a huge fire on Good Friday in 1788.

There were more than 800 buildings in the city that were destroyed.

Homes, stores, the cathedral, the hospital all burned after a single candle sparked the inferno that spread without warning.

It was Good Friday and back then it was very strict.

You couldn't ring any bells from Holy Thursday Mass until the Easter vigil.

And so when the fire broke out, they couldn't ring the fire bell.

So it spread out of control.

The eyewitness account saw the sisters bringing things to put in wagons so that if they had to leave, they would at least save the important things.

They had come and told the sisters they had to evacuate because it was about to engulf their house.

And one of the sisters took the statue and put it in the window, knelt down and said a prayer and said, Mary, help us or we're lost.

And at that moment, exactly at that moment, the wind changed.

Immediately, the wind changed course and blew the fire back on itself and saved at least the other part of the city and saved the convent.

And so that's the first time quick help that we know of, that we attribute to Mary under that devotion.

But the sweetheart statue was never renamed.

It was more like the seed for what was to come.

And this is how Our Lady of Prompt Succor got here.

Late Sister and shrine prioress Carla Dolce explains at the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor begins with the story of another French Ursuline nun trying to join her sisters in New Orleans against improbable odds.

In this case, the nun, Mother Saint Michel, had to get permission from the pope himself.

And he was then a prisoner of Napoleon.

So that's like you will never get it.

But the sister prayed.

And she decided to write a letter and she asked the pope, could she go to New Orleans?

But before she sent it, this sister too made a vow.

She prayed and she said, Mary, if I get a prompt and favorable answer, when I come to Louisiana, I will have you honored under that title.

Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

She sent it.

And within a month, a month, she received a prompt and favorable answer.

And the succor is from the original French name, means help.

So she commissioned the statue that we have over the main altar.

Her statue arrived in 1810.

The statue is one that is all laden in gold.

However, when she arrived in 1810, she looked like the statue you're going to see in the main stained glass window.

Treasured paintings tell the early history.

They may not recognize her because she has a coral gown with a blue mantle.

And just like the great fire that followed, soon after sweetheart's arrival, the city faced perhaps an even deadlier threat after the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor arrived.

The Battle of New Orleans.

Would she intercede again?

There were approximately 10,000 British troops that were going to descend upon the city.

It was an impossible, impossible challenge.

Everybody was terrified, including the sisters.

Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, New Orleanians feared not only for themselves and the city, but for the nation, had the British won.

Then they could get total control of the Mississippi River all the way up through the entire Louisiana territory.

And that way they could go in through the back door and recapture all of those territories that they lost during the Revolutionary War.

Assigned to protect the city?

General Andrew Jackson.

General Jackson was nervous, to say the least, about the battle.

He had a small and rather inefficient army.

When General Jackson came here, he warned the sisters and he said, I really think that you all need to evacuate because Washington, D.C. just had the Capitol building burned down by the British and the White House was set on fire, I'm thinking that you really need to leave.

Well, by that time, the Ursulines had so many ministries going, that they decided no, we're not leaving.

And so General Jackson made a request instead.

The Ursuline sisters are asked to pray for the survival of the city of New Orleans during the Battle of New Orleans.

And so the nuns prayed all night.

It was a daunting task.

The nuns prayed unceasingly into the next morning.

January 8th, 1815.

They celebrated the Mass and they promised if we got the miraculous victory every year on January 8th, we would have a celebration of Mass in Thanksgiving.

They were right in the middle of Mass.

they could smell the smoke from the battlefield and hear the gunshot.

A courier ran in right before the distribution of communion and he announced that victory was theirs.

They were still at Mass at six something in the morning when the messenger came and said the victory is ours.

The battle is won, very little loss of American life and very short time of suffering.

General Jackson came to the Ursuline Convent shortly after the battle, and he admitted that this was indeed divine intervention.

In fact, General Jackson, who was neither Catholic nor considered very spiritual, put it in writing in a letter to the bishop now kept at the shrine.

His letter begins with, there must have been a signal interposition, which is probably old speak for an intervention, a divine intervention, that took place here.

And true to the promise made on that January 8th morning of 1815, a Mass of Thanksgiving is held every year in the shrine where the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor radiates from above.

Gleaming in gold and adorned with the finest jewels.

This the result of her coronation at the end of the 19th century.

Her popularity really grew after the Battle of New Orleans.

And so you had many, many people who had this devotion to Our Lady.

A Dutch bishop by the name of Archbishop Janssens was assigned here, and he loved that the city was so full of Catholics.

It was wonderful.

But he said, wait a minute, they're factionalized, okay?

We have the Irish Catholics, the Italian Catholics, the Spanish Catholics, the French Catholics, the German Catholics, and they all had their own parishes and they were very isolated from one another.

But he noticed they all shared a devotion to Our Lady of prompt Succor, to whom many prayed for private intentions.

So he gathers up all this proof of miracles, large and small, favors granted and he brings them all to Pope Leo the 13th in Rome, and he asks that she be officially coronated under this title that had been used for such a long time: Notre Dame De Prompt Succor, Our Lady of Quick Help.

By papal decree, the coronation was held in 1895, the first of its kind in U.S. history.

It was at that point her statue was overlayed in gold and her crown adorned in jewels donated by the wealthy women of New Orleans, including the famous Baroness Pontalba.

And the women gave so much jewelry that we have two sets of crowns, because it's not just Mary, but the infant also has a crown.

Devotion to Our Lady grew stronger.

In times of epidemic and war, New Orleanians turned to her for quick help.

And many returned to the shrine in Thanksgiving, Like the World War two veteran whose son still visits today.

I'm at a loss, you know, three, three of the crew members were wounded, Dad was wounded in the eye.

Albert Richard III shares the story of his father, an Army pilot who was wounded in aerial combat in 1944.

Is it a miracle to you?

Yeah.

Richard had a lifelong devotion to Our Lady of Prompt Succor, dating back to his days as an altar server in the shrine.

When he left for war, he took pictures of the sweetheart statue for protection and wore an Our Lady of Prompt Succor medal.

Hoping she'd race to his aid should he ever need it.

We were on our way to bomb a target at Salzburg, Austria, on December the 20th.

Richard's son shares a letter his father wrote to his mother after surviving the unthinkable.

Well, we got there okay, but everything went wrong at once.

The plane's bomb bay doors got stuck.

So Richard, at 30,000 feet, dropped the bombs by hand into air he estimated was 50 degrees below zero.

And it only got worse from there.

Suddenly all hell broke loose.

A four-shell barrage hit us.

Two shells hit the belly and one knocked the nose off.

The men inside were hit, too, with shrapnel.

We floundered all over the sky.

But somehow in subzero temperatures, thousands of feet in the air above enemy territory in a plane riddled with holes, with his father, one of the pilots, hit in the eye, the entire crew survived, returning to base on a wing and a prayer.

Believe me, Richard wrote to his wife, Our Lady was really with us that day.

Central to the shrine is the music that fills its chapels.

There are actually two here, forming a right angle.

One adjacent to Ursuline Academy, where the students worship.

The other facing State Street and the public.

Both share the same altar and music echoes throughout.

This violin is a treasure in itself.

Serenading Our Lady since the 1700s.

The music echoes off the walls lined with stained glass windows.

The originals come from German artist Nicholas Zettler.

His student, American immigrant Emil Frei, was later commissioned to create the others.

Also on the walls hangs a reliquary unlike most Catholics have seen anywhere else.

Most people, when they think about relics, think about pieces of cloth or chips of bone that belonged to saints.

Here in the shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, we have a reliquary that is very unlike that.

It is full of actual bones of saints.

Dating back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, they were collected by Bishop William DuBourg, the priest who celebrated Mass during the Battle of New Orleans.

Upon his death, he bequeathed the reliquary to the nuns in hopes the graces of the saints would be with them always.

It, like the statues, predates the shrine, as do many of the contents in its vault.

Among them, the letter from former President Andrew Jackson about the miraculous Battle of New Orleans.

And the letter from President Thomas Jefferson before that, assuring the nuns their ministry and property would be protected under the new American government, an early win for women's rights.

Also of note, the camera used by Mother Saint Croix, the city's first female photographer, and the original mortar and pestle used by Sister Francis Xavier, the nation's first female pharmacist.

A blessing of the herbs is still held every year in her memory.

But this shrine is actually the fifth home of the Ursulines, after circumstances led to moves from the French Quarter to the Ninth Ward and ultimately Uptown to State Street in the early 20th century.

But.

Well, along came this wonderful woman by the name of Louise Thomas.

In 1922, Thomas wrote the check for the entire shrine built adjacent to the school, which many of the nuns attended as young girls.

One in particular was a Sister Teresita Rivet.

Sister T, as she came to be known, not only went to school here, she became its principal and taught generations of New Orleanians.

The Early Childhood Learning Center is named after her.

Just a beautiful person.

Eugene Priestley, who's served both on the boards of the shrine and the school, remembers his own daughter's love for the legendary Sister T. A burst of energy.

Loved the girls, loved the girls.

Did you know her?

Absolutely.

Did you know her?

Absolutely.

She admitted me to school when I was six years old, and I knew her until the day she died.

The Ursuline nuns have provided warmth and comfort for centuries here, serving all in need and in recent memory, that need was never greater than during Hurricane Katrina.

You find peace here?

Always.

Marilyn Augustus has been a fixture in the shrine for decades.

She is its caretaker, making sure that everything in Our Lady's gaze is, well, immaculate.

Even when we dealt with Hurricane Katrina This is where I found my peace.

Ahead of the storm, more than a million people evacuated, but the Ursulines stayed firm, faithful to their vow to serve I was prioress of the community then and people came here and stayed with us because they knew we'd be here.

Among those who took refuge in the shrine: employees, their families, a man just released from jail with nowhere to go.

Kids ages 2 to 10.

A woman in her nineties.

We could cook because we had a gas stove and you could light it with a match and so some of the ladies took care of cooking, some of them helped clean up.

The men stood guard because we were worried about crime, even though, you know, by the end of the first day we were surrounded by water.

And that water rose, and so did the temperature, into triple digits.

They lost power and communication, but never hope.

And we were rescued by boat.

We even have the pictures to prove it.

Somebody was out there and I'm like, why are they taking pictures?

We look terrible.

We haven't had a bath in a week and we're smelly.

And, you know, traumatized.

But now we're so glad we have those pictures.

The shrine reopened before much of the city.

Marilyn Augustus remembers her return.

The Baptist sacristan was home.

And when I came here, just knowing that the love I have for them, as well as the love they have for me, they did whatever it took to try to find me and vice versa.

And I came here as soon as I was able to come back.

And then you helped make it beautiful again?

Well, it works both ways.

Probably the first time I stepped foot in here was fourth grade.

So it was like same year of Katrina.

Erin Castille enrolled in Ursuline Academy in 2005.

She became an altar server in the shrine, a place from which she'd later celebrate her graduation, wedding and her return to Ursuline as a teacher.

It's a place where even the smell gives off that there's something special.

And there's been tears here and there's been prayer and song and celebration and life.

It's perfect.

It's the best place to be.

Best place to come when you don't know where to be or where to go.

As a student, Erin had prayed here daily, sometimes in need, sometimes in Thanksgiving.

And one time in 2012, in anger.

It was the worst day of her life, she said in an interview on CBS News.

Thinking like, you know, you don't really love me and you don't care about me and you're not even real.

And you know, this is all fake.

And I was like, you should just prove it if you were and if you did care about me.

And he did, for sure.

When Erin opened her eyes, she saw this shadow on a pillar.

And then when I saw it, I was like, whoa, what is this?

I think this is just so extraordinary, you know.

You can see the crown of thorns on Jesus.

You can see his face.

News of the shadow drew more than 1,500 people from around the country.

The shadow itself was explainable, cast by light filtered through the chandelier above.

But no one could explain why it had never been seen before.

Not even by Sister Carla, who'd been there since she was in elementary school.

You've been here since 1944.

Had you ever seen the shadow?

Never.

And I've been in the sanctuary.

Many people have been in the sanctuary, have never seen the image.

Not once.

What did you see?

Well, I saw Christ speaking to me.

It was a personal thing for me, okay.

And that's the way I took it.

In a statement, Archbishop Aymond said it wasn't an apparition, but added, “God can use things as simple as the sunlight and shadows to bring hope to people.

” I remember telling him I get it, but it's my miracle.

Really the word saved me seems really intense, but it did.

Erin's prayers were answered, as have so many others who've claimed miraculous intercession.

So in other words, I'm not supposed to be here.

Tim Taylor was born with holes in his heart that doctors predicted would stop beating within days.

No hope, they said then, and no explanation for why he's here now, except that something extraordinary happened when he left the hospital.

They brought me to the shrine and I was formally dedicated to Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

And she has kept me alive all these years.

My mother and father turned to Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

Pat Crum contracted encephalitis at age six, told she'd be paralyzed and blind if she survived.

She was neither following her parents' novena.

I tried to say the Our Father, blank, tried to say the Hail Mary.

Blank.

Judy Caliva's son was just four years old when he appeared to have drowned at a pool party.

What came to me so easily was Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us.

And we said it over and over and over.

Her son Patrick was revived unscathed.

And Bee Talbot is here only because her grandmother Mae survived in 1903.

Then just a baby, a horse had stomped on her face.

She began to hemorrhage from her eye, nose, ear, mouth, became unconscious.

In her deathbed, the family placed a medal of Our Lady of Prompt Succor and prayed.

Within hours, the hemorrhaging stopped.

Mae spoke her first word and she could see out of her eye.

Doctors were called and said there was no way this could happen unless it was a miracle.

Belief is a choice.

But it is fact that for centuries believers have come here.

Petitions are left every day, some written, some emailed, some in person.

This man came all the way from Pennsylvania in need of what he called Our Lady's quick help for a family hardship.

We get petitions from all over the world and we pray for them daily.

But Sister Carla is no longer there to pray.

She and Sister Donna have both passed.

In fact, all of the other Ursuline nuns who've become synonymous with the shrine have either died or retired or moved.

In a congregation that dates back three centuries in New Orleans, having cared for and educated generations of New Orleanians, there are only two nuns left.

Only their legacy will follow.

What is it like to be among the last?

Well, it does make me sad because I would love that there would be more people, I would love that there be younger women who would join us and help because it's such a wonderful ministry.

But we've had time to prepare.

We knew this was coming.

Plans have been in the works for years to transfer responsibilities to the lay board that will run the shrine.

That's a big, big cross to bear when you think about it.

Eugene Priestley is among those who share a commitment to serve and will help lead the shrine into its next century.

How do we continue the mission of what the sisters did here, especially as lay members, to continue the work that they're doing going forward to make sure it's here for perpetuity?

The challenge is daunting, but those inspired by the sisters and their mission of service, diversity and devotion will replace them.

The antique violin that only sisters once played is now cradled by a teacher, and the nuns who used to teach have been succeeded by the students they once taught.

The nuns' legacy is secure, serviam.

And the shrine's legacy?

We are welcoming people who are hopeless.

They come and find hope.

We're welcoming people who are desolate.

They find comfort, that's the mission of this shrine.

That's the only mission.

The shrine's legacy is hope.

Faith that no matter how formidable the threat, all things are possible when the Blessed Mother is trusted to hasten to our aid and bend the ear of God.

This program is brought to you by the Valentino family in loving memory of Mary Ann Valentino.

And by support from Craig Mundie in loving memory of his wife of 52 years, Marie Carr Mundie.

Funding also comes from the WYES Producers Circle, a group of generous contributors dedicated to the support of WYES local productions.