By Jeffrey Dirk Wilson.
Across hundreds of miles in Poland, the land is flat. Likewise, Częstochowa, though the monastery which houses the miraculous icon of the Black Madonna sits atop a hill. The choice of the site probably had much to do with its defensibility. It's the only monastery that I have visited which has ramparts.
The one hundred Pauline monks - named for St. Paul the Hermit c. A.D. 345 - who live there, as well as an extensive cadre of sisters, staff the premises. The monks are responsible for the many Masses each day. The sisters mind the museums and the tourist souvenir booths. How does one resist an elderly sister who looks you straight in the eye and smiles her very sweetest smile when she asks, "Would you like to buy something?"
There is a large church, but the icon, which is the centerpiece here, is in a smaller chapel. A Pole might consider it heresy to hear that as icons go, this one is not especially remarkable. In fact, one sees very little of the icon itself, only the faces and hands of Our Lady and her infant son. She is called the "Black" Madonna because of the darkness of the image. Centuries ago, before a million candles had been burnt in her presence, the tone might have been lighter.
The reason that one sees so little of the actual icon is that she is dressed in elaborate, even spectacular clothes.
The official guidebook says that there are two stories of the icon's origin, one of pious legend, the other of the art historians. The guidebook only tells the first of these stories. The board on which the icon is painted was (supposedly) taken from the table used by the Holy Family when they were at home in Nazareth. St. Luke got hold of it, cut out sections and painted portraits of Mother and Child. One hangs in Florence; the other is the Black Madonna.
Empress Mother Helena (c A.D. 246-330) - who went to the Holy Land, then under the rule of her son, Constantine (c. A.D. 227-337), the Roman Emperor - had it brought to Constantinople.
Meanwhile, in A.D. 476 the Roman Empire fell in the West but continued in the East with Constantinople as its capital until A.D. 1453. During that millennium, the emperors felt little but disdain for the rulers in the West, where once their predecessors had ruled. But occasionally, circumstances constrained emperors to seek help from rulers they despised.
In such a moment, the Black Madonna left Constantinople. Through the several hands of Eastern European rulers, she arrived in Częstochowa, where she has remained ever since.
It is nearly certain that St. Luke did not paint the icon. Art historians suggest it dates back to the ninth century, at least. In any event, the veneration of the faithful has hallowed this icon for a thousand years - and perhaps for a few centuries more.
The Poles - the ones whom I have met anyway - can recite their history over the past thousand years. They might slight the Lithuanians, though for some centuries, the Poles and Lithuanians formed the Commonwealth, sometimes just called, with great pride, "The Republic." But Polish lands, too, exchanged hands multiple times over the centuries.
Whatever importance Our Lady of Częstochowa has had for Polish national awareness before the sundering by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, the centrality of her shrine for Polish nationhood increased with every year from the tripartite division of Poland in A.D. 1795 through the period of Soviet hegemony.
Cardinal Karol Wojtyła (later as Pope John Paul II) underscored that importance as he plotted and philosophized over modern Polish freedom.
Poland is basically a conservative, Catholic country. Crucifixes hang in train stations. At this holiest of Polish Catholic shrines, the reverence is profound.
There is a brass railing around the edge of the chapel where the icon hangs over the altar. People queue behind that railing. When they come to the altar area, they kneel and then walk on their knees behind the altar. Only when they emerge from the altar area ...