Speedy help from Our Lady

A French nun in 1803 hoped to join her cousin at the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans. But her local bishop, not wanting her to leave, insisted she get permission from the Pope, who was then a prisoner of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The nun wrote to the Pontiff and prayed before a statue of Mary: "If you obtain for me a prompt and favorable answer to this letter, I promise to have you honored in New Orleans under the title of Our Lady of Prompt Succor." And so it was.

Our Lady of Prompt Succor also is credited for "the miraculous shifting of winds" that in 1788 and 1794 saved the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans from fire as well as with ensuring that a force of 3,000 Americans held off a British fleet three times its size during the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, the shrine's official history states.

When she earned a special papal honor in 1895, the women of New Orleans "donated their prized jeweled necklaces, bracelets, brooches, rings and earrings to have... crowns fashioned in gold and precious jewels" for the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor cradling the infant Jesus, the history reads. Since then, statues of the "quick help" iteration of Mary and her son have included golden robes, said Mary Lee Harris, assistant to the archivist at the Ursuline Convent Archives and Museum.

CNN