The Black Madonna of Jasna Gora is much more than a painting

Despite more than thirty years of religious persecution in Communist Poland in the 1950s, the number of pilgrims to Our Lady of Czestochowa, home of the icon of the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora, far from decreasing, has only increased and intensified in fervor.

Let us briefly recall the history of this icon of Byzantine origin: it dates back to the 15th century, but its origins go back much further. Around 1382, Prince Ladislas of Naples introduced it to Jasna Gora and entrusted its safekeeping to the hermits of Saint Paul, who have continually looked after it. Since then, the holy icon has never left the altarpiece of the sanctuary, as far back as memory goes and according to the oldest records. So it wasn't the "defense of Czestochowa" that made it famous, but rather the sanctity of the icon that spurred the fierce resistance of a handful of men who gladly risked their lives rather than surrender "their Queen" to unholy, sacrilegious hands.

We need to understand the cult of icons, unknown to the West. Of sacred origin, they are liturgical objects. Their main purpose is not to instruct, like artistic images in our Western cathedrals (dubbed the "poor man's Bible"), but to bring us into spiritual contact with the reality they represent.

Thus, for the Poles, the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora is much more than a painting or even a venerable relic. The Poles seek and find a mysterious presence in her shrine, as if the Queen of Paradise were pleased with Jasna Gora because of the veneration given to her "portrait".

Maria Winowska (1909 - 1993) a Polish Catholic writer and journalist.

Ecclesia # 185