One of the various titles of the Virgin Mary is Our Lady, Queen of Angels. When St. Francis founded the Friars Minor, he located the center of activity for the Order in a little church near Assisi dedicated to Our Lady of Angels, nicknamed the Little Portion (Portiuncula). This humble chapel became the root and home of the Franciscan movement. Ever since then, Franciscans have invoked our Lady’s help under this name.
When the Irish Capuchin Friars came to America, they named their first parish, in Hermiston, Oregon, after Our Lady of Angels. They did the same with one of their first parish in California, at Burlingame. It seemed only right, then, to name Our Lady of Angels the patroness of the new province of Capuchins in Western America in 1979. In 2010, to mark the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the friars in the west, a pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Angels, Mother of Vocations, visited each of the friaries. The patronal statue now resides at Old Mission Santa Inés, in Solvang, California.
The icon depicted was painted by iconographer Abbot Damian Higgins of Holy Transfiguration Monastery. It was given by the friars to the Irish Capuchin Province as a gift for their vision and support of the western Americas mission which is now the Our Lady of Angels Province.