Our Lady of Good Counsel

The devotion is centered on a small fresco of the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus, cheek to cheek, in the Augustinian church of Genazzano, near Rome. According to tradition, on April 25, 1467, while the town was celebrating the feast of Saint Mark, the image appeared on a wall of the church, which a pious widow, Petruccia, had been trying to restore. A beloved legend holds that the image had come from Scutari in Albania, carried by angels to save it from the advancing Ottoman armies.

Many healings were reported, and pilgrims flocked to Genazzano. The Augustinians spread the devotion worldwide, and popes favored it: Pius IX was a devoted pilgrim, and Leo XIII, a member of the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel, added the invocation Mother of Good Counsel to the Litany of Loreto in 1903. The fresco, painted on a thin layer of plaster, survived bombing in World War II.

Genazzano celebrates the feast with pilgrimages and processions, and Augustinian parishes and schools around the world keep April 26 with Mass and novenas. She is patroness of Albania, where the shrine of Shkodër recalls the image's origin.

In Latin America, many churches are dedicated to Nuestra Señora del Buen Consejo, and students and families turn to her before important decisions.