Our Lady of Prompt Succor

Our Lady of Prompt Succor is a Catholic devotional image whose promise of swift intercession became tangible for Anna Pou after her arrest: two friends gave her a silver charm bearing the image and urged her to keep it with her. In the book, the charm joins religious devotion to practical support from family and friends during a period of isolation and uncertainty.

Image and Devotion

The image represents a statue of the Virgin Mary sculpted in France and brought to a Ursuline convent in New Orleans in the early nineteenth century. Prayers to Our Lady of Prompt Succor were believed to bring quick intercession. The charm therefore carried a specific devotional association: it was not simply a keepsake, but an object linked to a local history of prayer and hoped-for aid.

The Charm After Pou’s Arrest

Pou was staying at her mother’s house in New Orleans when, on the morning after her arrest, two friends visited and gave her the silver charm. They told her to put on the medal, never remove it, and never underestimate the power of her family. Their instructions connected the object to ongoing companionship and kinship as well as to religious belief.

Pou’s mother had also advised her to entrust herself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to hope and trust. The charm entered this surrounding practice of faith at a moment when Pou would later describe herself as feeling alone, abandoned, and betrayed. Its presence does not resolve the legal crisis; rather, the gift makes visible the personal and spiritual support her friends were trying to offer as it continued.