Founded: 1925

Location: 2060 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles

Our Lady of the Angels Region:
Deanery 14

"On the best site available" were the words of the founding pastor, Augustinian Father John J. Farrell, to describe the two lots at Vermont and Ambrose Avenues for the new church of Our Mother of Good Counsel.

It was in May 1925 that the Augustinian Fathers in Villanova, Pennsylvania, responding to the request of Bishop John Cantwell, sent Father Farrell to establish this new parish. This three years after the Augustinian Fathers had first arrived in the city of Los Angeles (population: approximately 600,000).

Our Mother of Good Counsel remains the only parish in the archdiocese so honored by this Marian title, one holding a particular place of veneration for the Augustinians who were founded in 1244. The original painting Mother of Good Counsel is in the Augustinian Church in Genazzano, Italy. Although ancient legends ascribe a miraculous journey of the painting from Albania, recent restorations have authenticated the original fresco. However, numerous cures have occurred at the painting's site and most popes after their election choose to visit the shrine.

A copy of the Genazzano painting can be found above one of the side altars of the Vermont Avenue church, executed by local liturgical artists Edith and Isabel Piczek. The sisters also completed 51 stained glass windows that adorn the second church building that was finished in 1962.

Father Farrell celebrated the first Mass in a rented storefront at 1772 Vermont. It was, he noted in a letter, "a humble beginning, but we are confident that God's blessing will descend upon us and our efforts in His honor." In old parish records the pastor also noted the costs for preparing the store for the celebration: "Janitor washing floor: 50 cents; 6 vases @ 15 cents each: 90 cents; 2 cruets @ 20 cents each: 40 cents; 50 stamped envelopes: $1.10."

The first church opened on Christmas Day, 1925, a Spanish-style stucco building used for 35 years until parish growth required a larger, improved edifice.

Father George Dermody followed Father Farrell as pastor, serving from 1929 to 1933, but the Great Depression prevented any further improvements in the parish. In July of 1933 Father Philip L. Colgan was assigned and acquired two cottages to house a parochial school. Immaculate Heart Sisters traveled from their motherhouse in Hollywood to begin instructions and they remained the teaching staff for 35 years. A school building was completed in 1949 and then the convent.

During the war years extensive growth continued in the area and soon after the parish faced the additional mission of serving more than 400 Catholic families in the Rodger Young Village. Mostly ex-GI families lived in Quonset buildings about four miles from Good Counsel. Enterprising mothers managed to buy a bus to transport the children safely, and parish priests celebrated Mass in the village theater.

Through the years, the parish took on several abbreviated names. Newspaper articles, local bulletins and friendly gossip affectionately called the church "Good Counsel," "Mother of Good Counsel" or just "the Vermont church." The official name, however, is Our Mother of Good Counsel whose feast day is April 26.

In 1966 several Augustinian priests from Los Angeles, Ojai and San Diego attended the order's convention in Chicago where special tribute was accorded the life and work of Augustinian Father Gregor Mendel, the discoverer of the laws of heredity. The following year the Prior General of the Order, Most Reverend Augustine Trape, visited Southern California and noted the success of Augustinian students attending St. John's Seminary. At that time the order included 10,000 members throughout the world.

Pastors after 1960 have included Augustinian Fathers John Burns, Vincent McGarvey, John Keller, Gary Rye, James Mott, Michael McFadden and the present pastor, Gary Sanders of San Diego.

"The history of a parish is the history of birth, death, joy, sorrow," states an old parish record. "We bury our parents and friends, and central to these human experiences is our parish, located as the founding priest told that first small congregation 'on the best site available' --- Our Mother of Good Counsel Church."