Our Lady of Czestochowa

Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honored with a visit from the mother of my Lord? For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’ 2. Mary brought Jesus to Elizabeth and John the Baptist in her womb. Mary leads all people to Jesus! The more you develop a relationship with Mary, your spiritual mother, the more she will help you live your relationship with Jesus. Poland may be the last completely Christian nation in the world. I know it is not 100% but it is close. And why has their faith survived, even after 70 years of pressure from Government enforced atheism under the Soviet Union. Because of their deep relationship with Mary, the Mother of Jesus and Our Mother. Poland’s love for Mary is seen in their love for the Icon of the Black Madonna kept at the Monastery of Czestochowa. I saved an image of this icon on your email. Tradition holds that it was painted by St. Luke, the writer of the Gospel and later taken from Jerusalem to Constantinople and then Poland.  During Holy Week of 1430, robbers attacked the monastery looking for treasure, finding none they took whatever religious good, chalices, etc. and even the Holy Icon, but miraculously as they carried it away it become so heavy, they could go no further. They dropped it in the mud and slashed the Virgin's face with a sword, and the Icon began to bleed. With the 3rd stroke of the sword the attacker died. Frightened they left it desecrated in a puddle of blood and mud. The monks pulled the icon from the mud, a miraculous fountain appeared, which they used to clean the painting. The icon was repainted in Krakow, but both the arrow mark and the gashes from the sword were left and remain clearly visible today. 3. In the year 1655, the Lutheran King of Sweden, Charles X, attacked Poland. This invading force, known as the Deluge was stopped at only one place the fortress monastery of Czestochowa which contained the miraculous icon of the Black Madonna. As he stood beneath the ramparts of the monastery the Swedish General Muller contemptuously exclaimed "We will have that henhouse down in three days." But that is not how things turned out.  Both Polish and Swedish witnesses testified that that during the siege, the Holy Virgin of Czestochowa appeared above the monastery, leading the defenders and directing their fire.  A testimony of this miraculous apparition of the Blessed Virgin was given by the Swedish General Muller. After the siege of Czestochowa, General Muller spent some time in Krakow. In one of the churches, he gazed on a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Asked the reason for his amazement, he said in reply that what convinced him to retreat from the siege of Czestochowa was a visit from a noble woman. Her words and menacing look severely warned him. He did not know who the woman was until he saw this image of Mary in the Church. Then he knew it was the Blessed Virgin Mary herself who turned him away from destroying the Monastery that housed her Icon.  “Impossible,” he was saying about the Image. “This is like the Virgin that appeared to me and directed a canon against me by her hand. But on earth something like this does not seem possible. O Celestial and Divine thing! That which I feared beyond measure has shown again in her majestic face.”