On the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of John (19: 25-27) in which Jesus saw his mother at the foot of the cross and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby. He said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “This is your mother.”

Fr Paul says under the title of Help of Christians, Mary was chosen as Patroness of Australasia by the First Provincial Synod, convened by Archbishop Bede Polding, in Sydney in 1844. The fledgling colonies needed Mary’s help at that time, as the nation still does today.

We are helped through Mary’s powerful intercession, and through the example of her life that we find in the Gospels.

Today, Fr Paul invites to ask, ‘Our Lady, Help of Christians…Pray for us!’