It’s a 600-year-old object from Poland that has been credited with many healings and miracles in the Catholic faith community. It’s seen by many as a source of strength. And now, this revered religious icon is coming to Ottawa.
The “Black Madonna” icon, or “Our Lady of Czestochowa,” is coming to St. Patrick’s Basilica in Centretown as part of an international pilgrimage on March 18 and 19.
The global tour, titled, “From Ocean to Ocean,” aims to promote the pro-life movement and is sponsored by the Human Life International Organization.
The goal is to restore a “culture of life” in Canada, the U.S, and other countries around the world.
Fittingly, during its visit to Ottawa, the Black Madonna icon will be present at an anti-abortion protest near the Bank Street abortion clinic.
The Black Madonna icon, which depicts a dark-faced Mary as a guide, pointing to the Christ child with her right hand, started its journey in the summer of 2012 at the Jasna Góra monastery in Poland. It was blessed here where it has been housed since the 14th century, before travelling to Russia, its first stop on the tour. Since then, the Black Madonna has traveled through 23 countries, before finally arriving in North America in August.
“We’re very excited that the icon is coming to Ottawa,” says Angela Watters, who has been a parishioner at St. Patrick’s Basilica on Nepean Street for more than 75 years. “My husband ushers here, our daughter was baptized here, our daughter was married here. We have deep roots in this parish.”
She adds: “There are many people who don’t have the resources to travel to Poland or Europe to visit the icon, so the fact that it will be here in Ottawa is huge.”
The Black Madonna will also be paying a visit to the Polish parish St. Hyacinth while it’s in Centretown.
“The icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa is inherently related to the Polish history,” says Marek Zaremba, who was responsible for bringing the icon to St. Hyacinth while it’s in Ottawa. “In difficult moments in the history of Poland, of which there were many, the Polish people took much of their spiritual strength from Our Lady, whose icon has been housed at the Jasna Góra Monastery in the city of Częstochowa since the 14th century.”
Zaremba says that one such moment was the siege of the Jasna Góra monastery during the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655, when Polish monks saved the monastery from the much-larger Swedish army. This was the turning point of the Swedish invasion of Poland and began the liberation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Father Krystian Golisz, an expert on the Black Madonna icon and associate pastor at Divine Infant Church in Orleans, agrees.
“The Black Madonna icon is very important for the Polish people,” he says. “Wherever you go, in every Polish house you will find an image of the Black Madonna. In every house, people have the picture in their hallways. She’s very precious to us.”
Golisz adds: “Thousands of people march each year for the Black Madonna for two to three weeks, processing towards Czestochowa in Poland. I have walked three times, about the same distance each time of 300 kilometres.”
Golisz describes how pilgrims can be seen all along the route.
“People are praying, they are singing,” he says. “We don’t have to worry about where to sleep or eat, because as we’re passing through the villages, people are supporting us. They are offering us their houses and food for the night.”