Christmas with the Black Madonna
Christmas with the Black Madonna
Each year, right around Halloween, God gently assigns me to embrace a character in the nativity scene, in order to bring more meaning to my Christmas season. This year was no exception but the invitation did come with a surprising twist.
In late October I attended a one half day online retreat (because of COVID) that focused part of the morning on the annunciation of Mary. I listened to the story as the leader read about the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and letting her know what she’d been chosen to do. Birth the Christ child into the world. As I heard that and later spent quiet time with the passage, I felt something moving within me. A truth, a desire, a call? Something shifted and I felt God inviting me to birth Christ into the world, in the form of healing love.
More information about the shrine I visited and the Photo from https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/The-Black-Virgin-ofo-oMontserrat
The only trouble for me about this invitation, besides not knowing exactly what it meant, was that I’ve not really identified with nor embodied this quiet obedient innocent image of Mary (which is the major way she was portrayed as a role model in my youth). So I wondered how I would be able to embrace her in God’s invitation to me.
But God, in a clever and surprising move, invited me to remember and consider another perspective of Mary, a role model that I’d had a strong kinship with for years, the Black Madonna. I had even taken a pilgrimage to Spain to visit a Benedictine monastery in the mountains outside of Barcelona, which housed a beautiful sculpture of her holding Jesus in her lap. In her other hand she was holding the whole world as a small globe. I spent two days in her presence and felt her truths and her unique healing and human persona speaking into my life. I was in an especially difficult time in my life, with a lot on the line personally. She helped heal me in deep and lasting ways by her words, her insights, her blessing. She became, unconsciously, the unheralded part of Mary, her not-so-innocent side, perhaps her completed self. And now, this year, she was inviting me to embody her way of bringing Christ’s healing love into the world.
Who exactly is this Black Madonna who is bringing Christ’s healing love into the world? I had read about this mysterious phenomenon, of statues or paintings of Mary the mother of God, frequently with Jesus on her lap, whose skin tone was black. There were various explanations, like the fumes from candles causing the darkening, but there were statues with no candles that were also black. I was intrigued. I read a book describing holy female figures in several religious traditions that represented compassion, strength, suffering and pain well embraced. I found out that Lech Walenca, the solidarity poet and hero in the freeing of Poland from Soviet rule, and later its President, wore a Black Madonna lapel pin. I read about various sites of the Black Madonna all across Europe and how millions of pilgrims came each year, some crawling the last mile, to be in the presence of and blessed by the Black Madonna. She had become known as the patron saint of those who suffer.
Her exact origins are unclear. Some scholars cite evidence of the Black Madonna as early as the 12th to 15th centuries. In searching for information I found a more in- depth master’s thesis by Frederick Gustafson, which helped me to understand why she was so appealing to so many people. In eastern and southern Europe she had come to signify life’s suffering as redemptive and transformative. Gustafson writes:
The Black Madonna not only touches those in the “valley of tears,” she is the “valley of tears.” She is life with all its entanglements…She is intriguing to so many simply because of her ability to entice the agony of death, senseless pain and suffering, meaninglessness, futility, sense of loss, etc. out of a person’s soul into harsh but clear consciousness. In her case, there seems to be another quality here, however, in that she not only entices these out of a person; she also blesses them. She blesses the despair, so to speak…She blesses these experiences in turn as holding a viable place in the harmonious balance required if life, as known through the psyche, is to have not only depth and continuity but also hope and promise. She blesses the dark side of life and places the unanswerable within the context of a greater master plan, which lies, for the most part, outside the consciously visible.
Her blackness for me also connects with and epitomizes the deep wisdom of the Black female experience, which has emerged out of searing pain and injustice. Like the Black Madonna, she experiences suffering and stands present to the pain. She is holy resilient. She is healed and strengthened by her sisters in pain and she stands firm, finding sustenance in God and in community. She rocks to and fro, she sings the blues, she wails with grief, she hums with grace. She can be present to the pain of the world because she has been present to her own—and has been held through it all in God’s embrace. She listens. She cries. She holds. She soothes.
The Black Madonna is holy dignified presence. I think that’s why God chose her, because God sees her as a trustworthy woman role model for me, birthing Christ into the world. She knows deep pain but more importantly she knows how to deeply love—and heal. And crucially she knows that forgiveness and love are the antidotes to pain of all kinds. She whispers that to me in this current birthing invitation.
So now she is asking me to birth this multi-racial healing love of Christ into the world, being a receptacle, a reservoir for love, and then pouring that love on all people in whatever dose is called for. That means keeping my inner slate clean so love can flow, being present to my own pain and others’ pain, so as to soothe and to welcome healing. This life of love flows from deep rivers of intimacy, gratitude, humor and joy.
And I, too, whisper “Yes.” I know I am only a small and simple version of the Black Madonna, humbled by life and by errors, wounds and pain. I am also longing for calm, forgiveness and love, while promising to be present and resilient in order to pour love into the world. I will need her guidance every day in every way.
The Black Madonna’s response to Gabriel would probably not be the Magnificat! It might be an old spiritual, like “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen. Nobody Knows but Jesus,” a song that names her truth. Or maybe a blues song like the Doors’ famous, “I’ve Been Down so Long, that it Looks up to Me.” These songs move me too but an old hymn from my youth captures what my response would be.
O Love That Will Not let Me Go
O Love that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul in thee
I give thee back the life I owe
That in thine ocean depths
Its flow will richer fuller be
O joy that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to thee
I chase the rainbow through the rain
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn will tearless be
The virgin Mary’s other response to Gabriel and to God was “I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” I imagine that the Black Madonna would have answered a bit differently and so the two of us, after singing our musical responses together in unison, and with a little smile on our faces, simply say, “Bring it on!”
And here is a poem from another person in history who knows the depths of pain and sorrow and has written about it in describing the dark night of the soul. This is St. John of the Cross, describing the call for us to birth Christ or to be the midwife in Christ’s birth into the world. Amen. Let it be so.
If You want,
The Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy,
and say,
“I need shelter for the night; please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,
as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yes there, under the dome of your being does Creation
come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim--
the sacred womb in your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never
far.
If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light and
sing…
©Janet O. Hagberg, 2020. Please pass this along, if desired.
“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” was written by Tom Fettle, George Matheson, and Albert Peace
“If You Want” is from the book Love Poems from God edited by Daniel Ladinsky
Each year, right around Halloween, God gently assigns me to embrace a character in the nativity scene, in order to bring more meaning to my Christmas season. This year was no exception but the invitation did come with a surprising twist.
In late October I attended a one half day online retreat (because of COVID) that focused part of the morning on the annunciation of Mary. I listened to the story as the leader read about the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary and letting her know what she’d been chosen to do. Birth the Christ child into the world. As I heard that and later spent quiet time with the passage, I felt something moving within me. A truth, a desire, a call? Something shifted and I felt God inviting me to birth Christ into the world, in the form of healing love.
More information about the shrine I visited and the Photo from https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/The-Black-Virgin-ofo-oMontserrat
The only trouble for me about this invitation, besides not knowing exactly what it meant, was that I’ve not really identified with nor embodied this quiet obedient innocent image of Mary (which is the major way she was portrayed as a role model in my youth). So I wondered how I would be able to embrace her in God’s invitation to me.
But God, in a clever and surprising move, invited me to remember and consider another perspective of Mary, a role model that I’d had a strong kinship with for years, the Black Madonna. I had even taken a pilgrimage to Spain to visit a Benedictine monastery in the mountains outside of Barcelona, which housed a beautiful sculpture of her holding Jesus in her lap. In her other hand she was holding the whole world as a small globe. I spent two days in her presence and felt her truths and her unique healing and human persona speaking into my life. I was in an especially difficult time in my life, with a lot on the line personally. She helped heal me in deep and lasting ways by her words, her insights, her blessing. She became, unconsciously, the unheralded part of Mary, her not-so-innocent side, perhaps her completed self. And now, this year, she was inviting me to embody her way of bringing Christ’s healing love into the world.
Who exactly is this Black Madonna who is bringing Christ’s healing love into the world? I had read about this mysterious phenomenon, of statues or paintings of Mary the mother of God, frequently with Jesus on her lap, whose skin tone was black. There were various explanations, like the fumes from candles causing the darkening, but there were statues with no candles that were also black. I was intrigued. I read a book describing holy female figures in several religious traditions that represented compassion, strength, suffering and pain well embraced. I found out that Lech Walenca, the solidarity poet and hero in the freeing of Poland from Soviet rule, and later its President, wore a Black Madonna lapel pin. I read about various sites of the Black Madonna all across Europe and how millions of pilgrims came each year, some crawling the last mile, to be in the presence of and blessed by the Black Madonna. She had become known as the patron saint of those who suffer.
Her exact origins are unclear. Some scholars cite evidence of the Black Madonna as early as the 12th to 15th centuries. In searching for information I found a more in- depth master’s thesis by Frederick Gustafson, which helped me to understand why she was so appealing to so many people. In eastern and southern Europe she had come to signify life’s suffering as redemptive and transformative. Gustafson writes:
The Black Madonna not only touches those in the “valley of tears,” she is the “valley of tears.” She is life with all its entanglements…She is intriguing to so many simply because of her ability to entice the agony of death, senseless pain and suffering, meaninglessness, futility, sense of loss, etc. out of a person’s soul into harsh but clear consciousness. In her case, there seems to be another quality here, however, in that she not only entices these out of a person; she also blesses them. She blesses the despair, so to speak…She blesses these experiences in turn as holding a viable place in the harmonious balance required if life, as known through the psyche, is to have not only depth and continuity but also hope and promise. She blesses the dark side of life and places the unanswerable within the context of a greater master plan, which lies, for the most part, outside the consciously visible.
Her blackness for me also connects with and epitomizes the deep wisdom of the Black female experience, which has emerged out of searing pain and injustice. Like the Black Madonna, she experiences suffering and stands present to the pain. She is holy resilient. She is healed and strengthened by her sisters in pain and she stands firm, finding sustenance in God and in community. She rocks to and fro, she sings the blues, she wails with grief, she hums with grace. She can be present to the pain of the world because she has been present to her own—and has been held through it all in God’s embrace. She listens. She cries. She holds. She soothes.
The Black Madonna is holy dignified presence. I think that’s why God chose her, because God sees her as a trustworthy woman role model for me, birthing Christ into the world. She knows deep pain but more importantly she knows how to deeply love—and heal. And crucially she knows that forgiveness and love are the antidotes to pain of all kinds. She whispers that to me in this current birthing invitation.
So now she is asking me to birth this multi-racial healing love of Christ into the world, being a receptacle, a reservoir for love, and then pouring that love on all people in whatever dose is called for. That means keeping my inner slate clean so love can flow, being present to my own pain and others’ pain, so as to soothe and to welcome healing. This life of love flows from deep rivers of intimacy, gratitude, humor and joy.
And I, too, whisper “Yes.” I know I am only a small and simple version of the Black Madonna, humbled by life and by errors, wounds and pain. I am also longing for calm, forgiveness and love, while promising to be present and resilient in order to pour love into the world. I will need her guidance every day in every way.
The Black Madonna’s response to Gabriel would probably not be the Magnificat! It might be an old spiritual, like “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen. Nobody Knows but Jesus,” a song that names her truth. Or maybe a blues song like the Doors’ famous, “I’ve Been Down so Long, that it Looks up to Me.” These songs move me too but an old hymn from my youth captures what my response would be.
O Love That Will Not let Me Go
O Love that will not let me go
I rest my weary soul in thee
I give thee back the life I owe
That in thine ocean depths
Its flow will richer fuller be
O joy that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to thee
I chase the rainbow through the rain
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn will tearless be
The virgin Mary’s other response to Gabriel and to God was “I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” I imagine that the Black Madonna would have answered a bit differently and so the two of us, after singing our musical responses together in unison, and with a little smile on our faces, simply say, “Bring it on!”
And here is a poem from another person in history who knows the depths of pain and sorrow and has written about it in describing the dark night of the soul. This is St. John of the Cross, describing the call for us to birth Christ or to be the midwife in Christ’s birth into the world. Amen. Let it be so.
If You want,
The Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy,
and say,
“I need shelter for the night; please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,
as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yes there, under the dome of your being does Creation
come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim--
the sacred womb in your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never
far.
If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light and
sing…
©Janet O. Hagberg, 2020. Please pass this along, if desired.
“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” was written by Tom Fettle, George Matheson, and Albert Peace
“If You Want” is from the book Love Poems from God edited by Daniel Ladinsky
