The Queen of Heaven is happy to reside in Jasna Gora

Maria Winovska, a Polish Catholic writer and journalist who lived in Paris and died in 1993, wrote this during the Communist period, before the fall of the regime in Poland:

"Despite the religious persecution which, for more than thirty years, has been raging in Poland, the influx of pilgrims to Our Lady of Czestochowa, far from decreasing, has only increased and intensified in fervor. Let us briefly recall the history of the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora, an icon of Byzantine origin.

The story begins in the 14th century, but its origin goes back much further. Around 1382, Prince Vladislaus II of Opole brought it to Jasna Gora and entrusted its care to the hermits of St. Paul, who are still in charge of it. Since then, the holy icon has never left the altarpiece of the shrine, as far back as we can remember and according to the oldest chronicles. It was not, therefore, the "defense of Czestochowa" that made it famous, but rather the sacred character of the famous icon that inspired the fierce resistance of a handful of men who joyfully risked their lives rather than abandon "their Queen" to impious and sacrilegious hands. 

In order to understand the full significance of the siege of Jasna Gora by the Swedes (1655), one must understand the veneration of icons, not well-known in the West: of sacred origin, icons have a liturgical purpose. Their function is not simply to instruct, like the cathedrals that were dubbed the "poor man's Bible", but also to unite us to the reality that they represent.

Thus, for the Poles the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora represents much more than a painting or a venerable relic... They seek and find in it a mysterious Presence, as if the Queen of Heaven was happy to reside in Jasna Gora because of the veneration given to her portrait.

Maria Winowska,

Ecclesia n. 185