Prayer to the "Madonna of good advice" for help and thanks

Da Paolo Tessione - July 31, 2016

Prayer
Blessed Virgin Mary, most pure Mother of God, faithful dispenser of all graces, oh! For the love of your divine Son, illuminate my mind, and assist me with your advice, so that I can see and want what I must do in every circumstance of life. I hope, oh Immaculate Virgin, to receive this heavenly favor through your intercession; after God, all my confidence is in you.

Fearing, however, that my sins might prevent the effect of my prayer, I detest them as much as I can, because they infinitely displease your Son.

My good Mother, I ask you this thing alone: What should I do?

History
Madre del Buon Consiglio (in Latin Mater Boni Consilii) is one of the titles with which Mary, mother of Jesus is invoked. Of ancient origin, it became particularly popular after the discovery of the image of a Virgin with the baby Jesus in the sanctuary of Genazzano and the devotion was propagated by the Augustinian friars who officiated the church. In 1903 Pope Leo XIII added the invocation Mater Boni Consilii to the Lauretan litanies.

The reasons why the title of "Mother of the Good Council" suits Mary are set out in the decree Ex quo Beatissima Vergine of 22 April 1903 signed by Cardinal Serafino Cretoni, prefect of the Congregation of Rites, through which Pope Leo XIII added the invocation "Mater Boni Consilii, ora pro nobis" to the Lauretan litanies: "From the moment in which the Blessed Virgin Mary [...] accepted [...] the eternal plan of God and the mystery of the Incarnate Word [...] deserved to be also be called Mother of the Good Council. Moreover, taught by the living voice of divine Wisdom, those words of Life received by the Son and kept in the heart, generously poured them out on the neighbor. " Mary is the one who shows the way and illuminates the minds of pious women, disciples and apostles of Jesus. The decree also refers to the episode of the wedding at Cana, during which Mary pronounces the last words attributed to her by the Gospels: "Do what who will tell you ”, the most excellent and advantageous advice. Finally, from the cross, Jesus addresses the disciple saying "Behold, your Mother", inviting all Christians to follow the path indicated by Mary, dear councilor, as children.
Tradition attributes the introduction of the Marian title of Mater Boni Consilii to Pope Marco, to whom the evangelization of the territory of Genazzano would be attributed; the erection in Genazzano of a church dedicated to Maria Mater Boni Consilii would instead date back to the pontificate of Pope Sixtus III and would be linked to the fact that the assets used to finance the construction of the Liberian basilica (Santa Maria Maggiore) in Rome came from those lands .

The Mother of Good Counsel in the sanctuary of Genazzano
The church and the parish of the Mother of the Good Council, by interest of Prince Piero Giordano Colonna, with an act of December 27, 1356 were entrusted to the hermit friars of Saint Augustine.

On 25 April 1467, the feast of San Marco, patron of Genazzano, a painting was discovered on a wall of the church, depicting the Virgin and child Jesus, who had probably been covered in lime: the image soon became the object of great popular devotion and legends spread according to which the painting was transported by the angels from Scutari to take it away from the Turks who were invading Albania, or that it remained extraordinarily suspended on a very thin layer of plaster.

From the title of the church, the image took the name of Mother of the Good Council.

By the Augustinian friars, especially from the eighteenth century, the image and the cult of the Mother of the Good Council spread throughout Europe: for example, it was in front of an image of the Mother of the Good Council preserved in the church of the Imperial college of the Jesuits of Madrid who, on August 15, 1583, Luigi Gonzaga matured the decision to enter the Society of Jesus.

Over the centuries, pontiffs favored and promoted devotion to Our Lady of the Good Council: Pope Clement XII (belonging to a family of Albanian origin) granted plenary indulgence to those who had visited the sanctuary of Genazzano on the day of the titular feast (25 April, anniversary of the appearance of the image on the wall of the church of Genazzano) or in the following octave; Pope Pius VI in 1777 granted his own office with Mass for the day of the feast of the Mother of the Good Council; Pope Benedict XIV, with a brief Iniunctae Nobis of 2 July 1753, approved the pious union of the Mother of the Good Council of Genazzano, to which numerous other brotherhoods joined.

The cult of the Mother of the Good Council had a great impulse under the pontificate of Leo XIII (who came from Carpineto Romano, not far from Genazzano, and had an Augustinian friar as confessor) in 1884 he approved a new office for the party and in 1893 approved the white scapular of Mater Boni Consilii, enriched with indulgences; on March 17, 1903 he raised the sanctuary of Genazzano to the dignity of a minor basilica; [13] at the behest of the pontiff, by decree of April 22, 1903, the invocation "Mater Boni Consilii, ora pro nobis" was added to the Lauretan litanies.

On June 13, 2012 the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, by faculty granted to it by Pope Benedict XVI, proclaimed the Mother of the Good Council patron of Genazzano: on September 8, 2012 the Virgin of the Good Council was given the keys of Genazzano, which on the same day was declared Civitas Mariana.