THE REDEMPTORISTS AND THE BASILICA

The Redemptorists and the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help

by Joseph O. Adamec, C.Ss.R.

Our theme today is The Redemptorists and the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help." To understand the Redemptorist Fathers and Brothers and our relationship with Our Blessed Mother, it is important to understand our founder, St. Alphonsus Liguori. The most that many people know about St. Alphonsus is that it is a street on Mission Hill.

His life spanned most of the 18th century and during that century there were some people in the Church who were downgrading devotion to Our Blessed Mother. Alphonsus Liguori would not stand for that. So in 1750 he published a book, one of many books he wrote, entitled, 'The Glories of Mary.' The impact of the book was immediate, spectacular, and lasting. It restored devotion to Mary to its proper place in the Church, and propelled devotion to Mary for the next 200 years. Within those years The Glories of Mary has been translated into 80 different languages, and published in 800 known editions. It remains the last great classic written in honor of the Mother of God.

This zeal for Mary the Mother of God, the spiritual sons of St. Alphonsus, the Redemptorists, carried with them wherever they went.

In 1832, exactly one hundred years after the founding of the Redemptorists in the Kingdom of Naples in Italy, in 1732, the first overseas mission of the Redemptodsts was launched. Three of the Redemptorist Fathers and three Brothers came to America. The first seven years were years of struggle and insecurity. These Redemptorists were scattered, working among the Indians in the Northwest Territory of Wisconsin and Michigan, and among the Germans in northern Ohio. But in 1839 they secured their first permanent foundation in Pittsburgh, a church in a converted factory building. The Superior of the Redemptorists in America at that time was Fr. Joseph Prost. And he made this remarkable statement: "I have no doubt that our Congregation of Redemptorists was called to America to spread devotion to the Blessed Virgin." The Redemptorists grew and flourished.

Just 30 years after the first permanent foundation in Pittsburgh, Bishop Williams invited the Redemptorists to Boston in 1869. The Redemptorists purchased the Brinley House and estate of 5 acres in Roxbury also known as the Boston Highlands.

The area is rich in Revolutionary War history. During the siege of Boston, one of General George Washington's three divisions was camped on our hills. The hub of that division was Fort Hill where you can see the tower to our east. The Connecticut regiments were camped on Parker Hill, now Mission Hill.

Here in Boston we celebrate St. Patrick's Day also known as "Evacuation Day", the day the British evacuated, left, Boston in 1776. What brought about that flight was General Washington's placing cannons on Dorchester Heights (now Telegraph Hill). Those cannons were aimed at Boston Harbor and threatened the British ships. So the British left.

Washington, with his officers, made his plans to place those cannons, here in the Brinley House, which later would be the Redemptorists' residence for 32 years (photo to right). The Brinley House was one of the places that the idea of the Declaration of Independence was first advanced. Other plans were made in the Brinley House and for a year or so it was practically the capitol of the unformed American Republic.

On January 14, 1871, the first Redemptorist came to live in the Brinley House (I can't help noticing that it is on January 14th that we celebrate the feast of the Redemptorist priest, Blessed Peter Donders, who in 1871 was working in Dutch Guiana or Surinam in South America. Whoever could have guessed his statue would one day be here in the basilica?)

Father Adam Kreis, that first Redemptorist, was later joined by the pioneer community here at Mission. While we will easily forget their names, I think they should be mentioned on this occasion: the first superior, Fr. Joseph Wissel, along with Fathers Timothy Enright, Louis Koch, Francis X. Miller, and William O'Connor, and Brothers Dennis, Seraphicus, and Christopher.

In February 1870, the Redemptorists began to build the first church, a wooden structure, next to the Brinley House. The church was finished, and blessed. The first Mass was said on January 29, 1871, and the church dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

At this Mass, Fr. Wissel, the superior and celebrant explained that according to the Bishop's wishes the church was not a parish church, but a mission church. Confessions would be heard, Masses said, and Communions distributed but the people still had to go to their own parishes for baptisms and weddings. While crowds came for Confessions, Mass and Communion, and for magnificent ceremonies like Corpus Christi processions, it was still a mission church from which the Redemptorists would roam far and wide preaching parish missions.

The name "Mission Church" stuck. After it were named Mission Hill, Mission Hill Housing Project, Mission Park Housing, Mission Hill Little League, and the list goes on.

On Pentecost Sunday, May 28, 1871, the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was solemnly enthroned above the main altar of the church which bore her name. Just five years earlier in 1866, Pope Pius IX entrusted the original picture to the Redemptorists and told them "Make her known". That event is dramatized in the painting on the rear wall of the basilica.

So many people were coming to the shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help that the wooden church was no longer adequate. Fr. Leopold Petsch, the pastor in the mid 1870's, planned a new church. Ground breaking began in 1874. The foundations were laid in a hole in the Roxbury pudding stone. I read in the Mission Hill Gazette that that hole was made when stone was removed to make four houses on Parker St. You can still see those houses at 682 - 688 Parker St., this side of Tremont across from the project.

The cornerstone was blessed in a grand ceremony by Archbishop Williams, on May 28, 1876, five years to the day after the solemn enthronement of the picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

That night the Redemptorists could go to sleep with the thought of a job well begun. Well, not quite to sleep. At 11:30 Brother Chrysostom smelled smoke and saw flames, shouted "FIRE" and kept ringing the community bell. The nearby church was also in danger so one of the Redemptorists brought the Blessed Sacrament to a Catholic home. Firemen subdued the flames by 2:30 in the morning. No one suffered serious injury. Only Fr. Miller sprained an ankle jumping out a window. The house was later repaired.

The new church was dedicated April 7, 1878 while Fr. Loewekamp was pastor. The twin towers came later, and were completed on June 17, 191 0, Bunker Hill Day, when Fr. James Hayes was pastor. As a point of some interest: because of the lie of the land, the western tower at 215 feet is two feet higher than the eastern tower.

The first mission preached in our new church was in December, 1878. The large crucifix in the vestibule commemorates that event. In 1881 Fr. John J. Frawley was the first Redemptorist to celebrate his first Mass at Mission Church; the first or many, many more. He returned later as Pastor and built our present rectory in 1903, and left his name on a street on the hill. Because of population growth in the area, Mission Church became a parish in 1883.

The church has undergone several renovations in the course of the years, including the most recent in 1980 under Fr. James Foley.

In 1895 and 1896, while Fr. Frawley was pastor, this marble altar and Communion railing were installed as well as these mosaic floors in the sanctuary, and our beautiful stained-glass windows. The side altars of the Sacred Heart and St. Joseph came in 1915, while Fr. Hayes was Pastor.

When the new church was built, our Mother of Perpetual Help was moved from above the main altar to her special shrine. The blessing of the sick began on Wednesdays in 1874 and continued at the new shrine. Huge crowds of people continued to come. Many cures were documented. The crutches at our shrine are testimony to some of these cures. In 1901, the New York Herald, a secular newspaper, carried a lengthy article about the shrine, entitled "A Lourdes in the Land of Puritans." And there are the even more numerous blessings beyond physical cures that Our Mother of Perpetual Help has obtained for countless people here at her shrine.

From the Wednesday blessing of the sick grew the Wednesday novena devotions in honor of Our Mother of Perpetual Help which have attracted thousands of people over the years. To speak about these novena devotions without speaking about Fr. Joseph Manton would be like talking about the history of the Red Sox without mentioning Ted Williams. In fact, Fr. Manton and Ted Williams arrived in Boston at the same time in 1939. Ted Williams has long since retired, but after 55 years at the Shrine, Fr. Manton just keeps on going, with no retirement in sight. If God called the Redemptorists to America to spread devotion to Mary, then no Redemptorist has done more to spread devotion to Our Blessed Mother than Fr. Joseph Manton.

And now I'll conclude where I began: with St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists. He is pictured in our dome beneath the picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. He died in 1787. The Pope gave the picture to the Redemptorists later, in 1866. So shall we say that St. Alphonsus never knew the famous picture? I will not say that! The picture of Our Mother of Perpetual Help had been enshrined in the Church of St. Matthew in Rome for almost 300 years. In 1798, Napoleon's army destroyed the church of St. Matthew but the picture was rescued.

But prior to that, in 1762, when St. Alphonsus went to Rome from Naples to be consecrated bishop, he had to spend several weeks in Rome. During that time, he occupied himself by visiting Rome's famous shrines. And one of those famous shrines was the shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help at St. Matthew's. And it's likely that St. Alphonsus, with his great devotion to Mary, visited her shrine.

Of course, he could never have dreamed that on the site of St. Matthew's Church would stand the church of St. Alphonsus with the original picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help over the main altar.

Nor could he have dreamed that one day he would be pictured kneeling beneath her picture in Boston, in the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help!

Rev. Joseph Otto Adamec, C.Ss.R, was bom in New York City in the Parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. He was ordained in 1952 as a priest of the Redemptorist Order after graduation from Mt. Saint Alphonsus Seminary at Esopus, N.Y.

Fr. Adamec served as a parish priest in New York City; Baltimore, MD; Buffalo, NY, and St. Croix, Virgin Islands before coming to the Mission Church in 1988.

Fr. Adamec is fluent in Czech and Spanish as well as English.