Our Lady of Good Remedy Novena: Prayers and History

Our Lady of Good Remedy is the Blessed Virgin Mary honoured under the title given her by the Trinitarian Order, founded at the end of the twelfth century by St John of Matha and St Felix of Valois to ransom Christians held captive by the Moors. The novena below asks her, who found the "good remedy" for the captives, to find one for our own needs of body and soul: the sick, the sinner, the poor, the family in trouble. It is prayed above all in the nine days before her feast on October 8, and at any time a remedy is needed.

The novena prayer to Our Lady of Good Remedy

The prayer most often printed in English as "the novena to Our Lady of Good Remedy" is a recent composition by an unknown author (see the section on tradition below). We do not reproduce it here. It opens "O Queen of Heaven and Earth, Most Holy Virgin, we venerate thee", greets Our Lady as the one who "comes to the aid of all who call upon thee", and asks her to find a remedy for every need. The same petition can be made each day with the Church's oldest and most trusted prayers to the Mother of God, which ask exactly what the title of Good Remedy promises: help in necessity. The prayers below are the same on all nine days. Name your intention at the start.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Name your intention. Then say the Sub tuum praesidium, the oldest known prayer to the Mother of God:

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei Genitrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.

We fly to thy protection, O holy Mother of God. Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.

Then the Memorare, long attributed to St Bernard:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

Then three Hail Marys, each followed by the invocation: Our Lady of Good Remedy, pray for us.

Those with more time close each day with the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Litany of Loreto, whose invocations "Health of the sick, Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted, Help of Christians" are the very petitions of this novena.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The prayer to Our Lady of Good Remedy for one day

The most searched form of this devotion is a single prayer to Our Lady of Good Remedy, said once rather than over nine days. The surest is the Memorare given above: say it slowly, name your need, and add a Hail Mary with the invocation "Our Lady of Good Remedy, pray for us." It is a good prayer to keep on a card in a missal or by a sickbed, and a good way to begin before committing to the full nine days.

How to pray the novena to Our Lady of Good Remedy

A novena is nine days of steady prayer for one intention; if you have never made one, our guide to what a novena is explains its meaning and its roots in the nine days the Apostles prayed with Our Lady before Pentecost.

• The dates. To end on the feast, begin on September 30 and finish on October 8. To end on the eve, begin on September 29. The novena may also be made at any time of the year.
• Once a day, at a fixed hour if you can, say the prayers above: the Sub tuum, the Memorare and the three Hail Marys.
• One intention, named on the first day and kept to the last. The novena is prayed for every kind of need: healing and health, a family divided, a sinner far from the sacraments, debt or loss of work, a decision that must be made.
• Join the Rosary to it if you can. The novena asks Our Lady for a remedy; the Rosary is the remedy she has always pressed on her children. Our guide on how to pray the Rosary gives the whole of it.
• Go to Confession during the nine days. Our Lady is the Refuge of sinners, and the first remedy Our Lady obtains for any of us is a clean conscience.

A novena is not a bargain with heaven: it commends a need to the Mother of God and leaves its answer to Providence. Many who make it for one intention find that the remedy granted is a different one, and a better one.

Who is Our Lady of Good Remedy? The history of the title

St John of Matha, St Felix of Valois and the ransom of captives

In the twelfth century, and for centuries after, thousands of Christians, sailors, pilgrims, soldiers and coastal villagers of Spain, France and Italy, were taken captive by the Moors and sold as slaves in North Africa and Moorish Spain. Many were pressed to deny the Faith to win their freedom.

St John of Matha, a Provençal priest and doctor of the University of Paris, resolved to found an order to buy them back. The traditional account, as Butler relates it, says that at his first Mass he saw an angel clothed in white, wearing a cross of red and blue, his hands resting on two captives in chains. He withdrew to the forest of Cerfroid, in the province of Valois, to the hermit St Felix of Valois, and together they went to Rome in the winter of 1197. Pope Innocent III approved the Rule of the new Order of the Most Holy Trinity on 17 December 1198. Its friars wore the white habit with the red and blue cross of the vision, and a third of all the Order's revenues was set aside for the redemption of captives.

Their founders' feasts stand in the 1962 calendar: St John of Matha on 8 February and St Felix of Valois on 20 November. The order was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, as its full name still says: the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of Captives. Some twenty years later, at Barcelona, the same work of ransom gave the Church a second order, the Mercedarians of Our Lady of Ransom, founded by St Peter Nolasco with the counsel, the Breviary relates, of his confessor St Raymond of Penafort.

Why "Good Remedy"

Ransom cost money, a great deal of it, gathered alms by alms across Christendom and carried by the friars into the markets of Tunis and Algiers. The Trinitarians placed this whole work under the protection of the Mother of God, and they credited her with its success: the money came, the captives came home. In thanksgiving the Order honoured her as Our Lady of Good Remedy, Nuestra Señora del Remedio in Spain and Latin America, Notre-Dame du Bon Remède in France, the Mother who supplies the remedy when there is none left on earth. Over the following centuries the Trinitarians and their fellow redeemers ransomed captives by the tens of thousands; the best known of them is Miguel de Cervantes, bought back from Algiers in 1580 by the Trinitarian friar Juan Gil.

The captivity of the body was the occasion of the title, but the remedy it names has always been understood more widely: Mary obtains from her Son help for every bondage, of sickness, poverty, grief or sin. That is why Our Lady of Good Remedy is invoked today chiefly for health and healing, and for those enslaved by habits of sin, as well as for persecuted Christians.

How Our Lady of Good Remedy is depicted (statue, medal, holy cards)

The classic image of Our Lady of Good Remedy shows the Virgin, often crowned and holding the Child, handing a purse of money to St John of Matha, who kneels before her in the white Trinitarian habit with its red and blue cross; sometimes St Felix of Valois and a freed captive with broken chains stand by. The statue, the medal and the holy prayer card of Our Lady of Good Remedy all repeat this scene, because it tells the whole story at a glance: the remedy comes from heaven, through Mary, into the hands of those who serve the poor. A medal or statue of Our Lady of Good Remedy is a sacramental when blessed by a priest, a reminder to have recourse to her, never a charm.

Shrines and churches of Our Lady of Good Remedy

Churches and shrines under this title are found wherever the Trinitarians worked: in Spain, where the Virgen del Remedio is patroness of many towns, in France, Italy and across Latin America, and in the United States, where parishes and a few shrines bear her name. The Trinitarian mother house remains at Cerfroid, in France, where the order began.

The feast of Our Lady of Good Remedy: October 8

The Trinitarian family keeps the feast of Our Lady of Good Remedy on October 8, and churches and shrines dedicated to her keep it as their patronal day. It is a feast proper to the Order and to places of its devotion, not a feast of the universal calendar. In the 1962 Roman calendar, October 8 is the feast of St Bridget of Sweden, widow, the mystic whose devotion is known through the Fifteen Prayers of St Bridget. Those who follow the 1962 Missal therefore hear the Mass of St Bridget on that day and keep the Good Remedy feast in their private prayer, ending the novena with it.

Through the eyes of tradition

The title of Our Lady of Good Remedy is old: it belongs to the Trinitarian Order and is centuries older than any modern reform. The English novena prayer given above, however, is not old. It circulates widely without a named author or an imprimatur that we have been able to trace, and its vocabulary ("a more intensely Christian lifestyle", "a source of healing in this broken world", "make the world alive with His Spirit") is that of the later twentieth century, not of the Raccolta or the older prayer-books. Nothing in it is contrary to the Faith, but since its author and its rights are unknown we quote only its opening lines, and give the novena above in the words of the Church's own prayers to Our Lady.

The Sub tuum praesidium, the Memorare, the Litany of Loreto and the Rosary are the Church's tested prayers to Our Lady under every title of help, and they ask for the same remedy. For other Marian titles of help in need, see the novena to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and for sickness in particular the novena to Our Lady of Good Health. For short, urgent recourse to Mary at any hour, many keep the Three Hail Marys novena.

Is there a novena to Our Lady of Good Remedy PDF?

We do not offer a PDF, deliberately. The complete novena is on this page, and it prints as it is from your browser if you want a paper copy. But a sheet of paper is easily lost before the ninth day. The Iter Fidei app carries the traditional prayers to Our Lady in Latin and English, works offline, and reminds you each day of the novena so that you do not break the nine days. It is the better companion: Join early access here. and keep the prayer with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Our Lady of Good Remedy?

She is the Blessed Virgin Mary invoked under the title given her by the Trinitarian Order, founded by St John of Matha and St Felix of Valois and approved by Innocent III in 1198 to ransom Christian captives. The friars placed their collections for the ransom under her protection and, in thanksgiving for her help, named her Our Lady of Good Remedy.

When is the feast day of Our Lady of Good Remedy?

October 8, kept by the Trinitarian family and by the churches and shrines dedicated to her. It is a proper feast, not a feast of the universal 1962 calendar, in which October 8 is St Bridget of Sweden.

When do I start the novena to Our Lady of Good Remedy?

Begin on September 30 to end on the feast, October 8, or on September 29 to end on its eve. The novena may be prayed at any other time of the year for an urgent need.

What is Our Lady of Good Remedy invoked for?

For every need for which no earthly remedy seems left: sickness and healing, the conversion of sinners, poverty and debt, loneliness and grief, and, as at the beginning, for Christians held captive or persecuted for the Faith.

What does the title "Good Remedy" mean?

That Mary obtains from her Son the right remedy for each affliction. The first remedy was literal: the money that bought back captives from slavery. The title has always been understood to reach further, to every bondage of body and soul.

What is the Our Lady of Good Remedy medal?

A devotional medal that usually shows the Virgin handing a purse to St John of Matha, the scene at the origin of the title. Blessed by a priest, it is a sacramental: a sign that disposes us to prayer and to trust in Our Lady's help, not an object with power of its own.

Is Our Lady of Good Remedy the same as Our Lady of Good Health?

No. Our Lady of Good Remedy is the Trinitarian title born of the ransom of captives. Our Lady of Good Health is the title of Vailankanni in India, invoked especially for the sick. Both are the one Mother of God, honoured under different titles.

Pray this novena to Our Lady of Good Remedy with a reminder each of the nine days and the traditional prayers to Our Lady in Latin and English, in the Iter Fidei app. Join early access here.

Sources. Butler's Lives of the Saints, 8 February (St John of Matha) and 20 November (St Felix of Valois); Pope Innocent III, approval of the Rule of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity (17 December 1198); the novena to Our Lady of Good Remedy in current English use; the Sub tuum praesidium and the Memorare; the Litany of Loreto; the Roman calendar of 1962 (8 October).