7th Ward Shooting, New Orleans

Our Lady of Prompt Succor

The day before the shooting that happened on the corner of North Villere and Frenchman Streets, I told two of our guests that if you read the police reports in the newspaper it seems like someone gets shot every day in New Orleans.  I said that we have have lived here three years and we have never heard the sound of gunfire.  Firecrackers, yes, but not gunfire.  I assured them that their likelihood of their being shot was slim.  

19 people were shot on the corner of North Villere and Frenchman Streets during the Original Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club's annual Mother's Day second line.   The corner of North Villere and Frenchman Streets.  Even if you live in Black Pearl or West Lakeshore or Venetian Isles, that is close to home.     

Nobody we know was among the victims, or even in the area.  That doesn't make it any better.

Our Lady of Prompt Succor is the patroness of New Orleans.  Her national shrine is on the corner of State Street and South Claiborne Avenue.  

Our Lady of Prompt Succor

Ursulines nuns have a long history in New Orleans.  They used to live in the French Quarter.  Three blocks uptown of our street, they have an avenue named after them.  They eventually moved many, many more blocks uptown, where they also moved their girls academy, and they moved the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.  

On Sundays, and on every other day, at least a hundred twenty people in New Orleans say, "Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us!"  It helped Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans.

St. Joan of Arc

We've only lived in New Orleans for three years: six months uptown and two and a half years downtown.  We know tragedies unfold every day in New Orleans.  Sometimes slowly, sometimes in a burst.  Sometimes private, sometimes public, sometimes both. This is one of those times.

I can't read anything written in anybody's heart.  All I know is what I see on the streets.  I have seen more saints than sinners in New Orleans than I have seen anywhere else.  

It doesn't take too many apples to spoil a good barrel.  New Orleans is shaped like a bowl.  We are surrounded by water, but you have to go looking for it to see it.  The only good thing that involves gunpowder happens on the Fourth of July.  It is shot harmlessly heavenward from barges in the Mississippi River.

The middle of Esplanade is home to Clio, the Goddess of Peace and Muse of History.  Her statue is in Gayerre Place, on a terra cotta pedestal.

Gayarre Place, New Orleans

Everyone who lives in New Orleans lives here by choice.  The city is shaped like a bowl and it holds a few bad apples.  The good of its neighbors and neighborhoods outweighs the bad.   

Is New Orleans safe?  Overall, I still have to say yes.

Sweetheart statue

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us.

A votre sante,

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.