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This
Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa, also known as the BLACK MADONNA is
enshrined
on the Jasna Gora (Hill of Light) above the city of Czestochowa in
South
Central Poland. Here under this title the Polish people for centuries
have
honored Mary the Mother of God. And her divine Son. In 1382, the wooden
icon of the mother and child was brought from the Ukraine to
Czestochowa
bt Prince Ladislaus Opolszyk who built a chapel and monastery to house
it. The prince was convinced that the icon brought protection to
his people during those chaotic times when Tarter invaders swept
through
Eastern Europe. A cut from a Tarter arrow is visible on Mary's
neck.
Mary, who holds her child tenderly in her hands, bears two scars on her
cheek, which come from the swords of invading soldiers in the fifteenth
century. Her face is blackened from fire and dirt from battles for the
control of Poland. The icon carries the signs of Poland's struggles and
it's victories over it's foes. The people of Poland have made
Czestochowa
a center of pilgrimage and the center of their nation. Not only do they
recall the goodness of their patroness in great battles and national
struggles,
but she is the mother who hears her children's family and individule
needs.
In sickness, trouble and sorrow, she has come to their aid. In the
years
under communist domination of the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa it
became the rallying point for the Polish people, persecuted for their
Christian
faith.
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