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Our Lady of Prompt Succor is the patron saint of the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana (USA). It is a national shrine, and her feast day is celebrated on January 8.
The French Ursulines arrived in New Orleans in 1727 and established the oldest girls' school in the United States. During a period of crisis after a large group of nuns left New Orleans for Cuba in 1803, Mother Saint-André Madier, one of the seven sisters who remained, appealed to her cousin who was an Ursuline in France and whom the Reign of Terror had forced to leave her monastery. Her name was Mother Saint-Michel Gensoul, and she was an outstanding woman who, during her exile in Montpellier, had opened a boarding school for young girls.
Her bishop, Msgr Fournier, refused her request to leave, saying that only the Pope, then held prisoner by Napoleon, could grant this permission. One day, while praying before a statue of the Virgin Mary, Mother Saint-André Madier was inspired to say: “O most holy Virgin Mary, if you obtain a prompt and positive reply to my letter, I promise to honor you in New Orleans under the title of Our Lady of Prompt Succor”.
The response was both rapid and positive: the letter left Montpellier on March 19, 1809, and the reply was received on April 28, 1809. Surprised by the pope's answer, Bishop Fournier blessed the statue that Mother Saint-Michel had commissioned.
Since then, devotion to Our Lady of Prompt Succor has grown in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana, and has spread throughout the United States and beyond.