Czestochowa

---

Our pilgrimage to Poland ended with a trip to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, Europe’s most famous shrine. The shrine gets its fame from the icon of the Black Madonna which has been the source of numerous miracles. The origin of the icon is unknown but one legend says that Saint Luke the Evangelist painted the portrait on a table made by Jesus himself.

Saint Helena discovered the image while in Jerusalem searching for the Holy Cross and took it home to Constantinople where it would remain for the next five hundred years.

In 803 the image was given to a Greek princess as a wedding gift. The bride placed it in the royal palace at Belz where it remained for about six hundred years. In the fourteenth century the city where the image resided came under attack and was occupied by the Tartars. Everything in the city was looted except for the image of the Madonna which, during the occupation, had a mysterious cloud envelop the chapel where it was contained. After the enemies withdrew an angel appeared to the prince of Belz, Saint Ladislaus, and ordered him to take the image to Czestochowa. Saint Ladislaus founded a monastery of Pauline monks to care for the icon and in 1386 they built the first church on Jasna Gora (where I visited!) Within the next 45 years a great cathedral was built around the Chapel containing the image.

In 1430 the Hussites attacked Czestochowa, burning and robbing everything in sight and among their loot was the image. The soldiers attempted to destroy the painting when leaving the city and out of frustration one soldier struck the image with a sword, leaving two gashes on Our Lady’s right cheek. After this the soldiers abandoned the image and fled.

Monks later found the image covered in dirt and blood and attempted to clean it but all the wells had dried up fighting the fires. At this time a miraculous fountain sprung up and the monks were able to clean the image. It was later repainted in a workshop in Krakow but the scars were left as a reminder of the sacrilege.

For the next two hundred years many victories won by Poland were attributed to the miraculous help of the Madonna. In 1656 King John Casmir declared Our Lady of Czestochowa “Queen of Poland.”

The Holy See has approved and sanctioned the devotion to Our Lady of Czestochowa.

There was such a peace while we were at the Shrine. We got there at about 10 o’clock on Saturday night. Coreen and I were able to walk around the shrine that night and it was absolutely beautiful. We saw a candlelight procession of people, perhaps praying the rosary but we couldn’t tell because they were speaking Polish. Then we saw a bunch of priests playing music so that was fun to watch.

Sunday we were able to have mass in the chapel which contained the Black Madonna. It was a tight fit squeezing 150 of us into an ity bity chapel but it was beautiful and well worth it because if was the highlight of my time in Poland.

Although we had amazing tour guides all my historical information came from Catholic Shrines of Central and Eastern Europe by Kevin J. Wright…an amazing book!

---

Photos

Vestment that John Paul II was wearing when he was shot
This was in the Chapel with the Black Madonna.

Piotr talking on the tour
Piotr was our tour guide

The bell
Funny story behind the bell. When Coreen and I were walking around the night we got there we saw it and really wanted to ring it. We came very close to touching it but for fear of a. breaking it and b. being arrested in Poland, we refrained.

Coreen on the bell tower
After mass we got to climb up the bell tower which was really exciting...and a little scary, I'm not going to lie.

The sewer
I thought the sewers in Poland were really neat so I had to take a picture.

Comments

[nika]

hello
hi, i really like the story of the Black Madonna. the way you've written it makes it sound very interesting, and it is refreshing to hear some real history to go with the pics. - Dominika