(ANS - Belo Horizonte) - The story of the Salesians in Brazil may have acquired a totally new chapter. Last week the St John Bosco Province of Brazil-Belo Horizonte received a small statue of Mary Help of Christians hitherto unknown, which is probably the first statue of Mary Help of Christians to have reached Brazil. Its arrival in the country seems to have taken place in 1817.

The statuette was given to the Provincial, Father Oreste Fistarol, and the Salesian brother Raymundo Mesquita, by a certain Dimas Coelho Perpétuo. According to him the statue came from Maria de Lourdes Monteiro de Souza, great-granddaughter of Marie Joaquine Sauvan, who came to Brazil from Austria in 1817 as a lady-in-waiting of Princess Leopoldina, wife of Dom Pedro I. The statue was passed down through the generations to Maria de Lourdes Monteiro de Souza, and so came to Mr Coelho Perpétuo who was close to her from 1987 to 2014 - the year of her death - in the nursing home where the lady was cared for.

According to Mr Coelho Perpétuo, after she had undergone eye surgery, Ms Monteiro de Souza told him the story of the statue, and in 2008 she signed a document donating it to him.

Mr Coelho Perpétuo Dimas showed the ivory statuette of the Help of Christians to the Salesians, along with the document donating it to him, and the birth certificates of Ms Monteiro de Souza and her mother, confirming their kinship with the Austrian lady-in-waiting.

Studying the image, Fr Fistarol highlighted some features. "It's really an old way of presenting Mary Help of Christians. It has a similar appearance to that of Turin. It is almost an adaptation of the Immaculate, typical of the first images of Mary Help of Christians. Interestingly, the Child Jesus is holding the world in his hand, and this is very significant," he said.

Mr Dimas Coelho said that one of his goals is to find an expert to analyse the statue and find out the date of creation, since, if it arrived in Brazil in 1817, it must have been made before that.

The image of Mary Help of Christians currently believed to be the oldest in the country is one made of wood which is to be found at the Provincial House in Belo Horizonte. It was brought to Brazil from Italy about 140 years ago.

Published 26/1/2016