Our Lady of Częstochowa
One
Icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa
The oldest document dating to 1474 called The Transfer of the Painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary which St. Luke Painted with his own hands relates that St. Luke painted the holy icon and that he completed this work in Jerusalem prior to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The holy image was painted on the top of the table at which the Holy Family once used to pray and dine. It is said to have been requested by the faithful of Jerusalem, who wished to have Mary's likeness as a memorial of her extraordinary beauty. The holy artist represented the Blessed Virgin with her Child Jesus on her left arm.
The Icon was venerated by the Christians in Jerusalem until it was transferred to Constantinople by Queen Helena, Mother of the Emperor Constantine, where it remained for many centuries.
At one point the Icon was brought to the Castle of Belz on the current Polish/Ukrainian border. When this castle was besieged by attackers and an arrow pierced the face of the Holy Virgin, Prince Ladislaus of Opole prayed to Our Lady for help. Immediately thick fog enveloped the enemy. Taking advantage of this, Ladislaus repulsed the attackers and defeated them.
In 1382, Prince Ladislaus intended to take the miraculous icon to his own estate in Silesia, but to his surprise, the horses could not move the wagon a single step. The load seemed too heavy. Then the prince commanded additional horses, but they also could not pull the weight. The prince in great dismay vowed on his knees that if the Blessed Virgin assisted him in carrying her image to whatever place she directed, he would endow a shrine for it. When the prince rose from his knees, the horses pulled forward at once and carried the holy icon to Jasna Gora. Here the prince, true to his promise, erected and endowed the monastery and presented the holy image to the Pauline monks.
Two
Our Lady of Sorrows
The Icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa has two distinctive slash marks on her cheek that give her a look of tremendous sorrow.
In 1430, robbers attacked the monastery looking for treasure. Finding none, they took everything of value, even the Holy Icon. But miraculously as they carried it away it became so heavy they could go no further. They dropped it in the mud and slashed the Virgin's face with a sword. With the third stroke of the sword, the attackers died, leaving the Icon desecrated in a puddle of blood and mud.
The monks pursuing them found the icon and when they lifted the icon from the ground a miraculous fountain appeared and they used it to clean the painting. They tried to repair the icon and remove the slash marks on her face but no matter how many times they painted over it, the slash marks from the swords reappeared. It was impossible for them to cover or remove. And why is this? Because Mary is Our Lady of Sorrow. She stood by Jesus at the cross and she continues to be Our Sorrowful Mother because of so many of her children who are either not interested or openly reject the salvation offered by Jesus and are in danger of going to Hell by their own choice.
Three
Miraculous Interventions
In 1540, the wife and two children of a peasant died. He carried them to the monastery and laid them before Our Lady of Częstochowa. As the monks prayed the Magnificat and especially the words, “The Almighty has done great things for me, holy is his name, his mercy reaches from age to age…” all three were raised from the dead.
The Deluge
In 1655, the Swedish Lutheran Army attacked Poland, advancing as far as the center of the country, to Częstochowa. The King of Poland, Jan Casimir, fled in fear but the peasants and the monks and a few heavily armored knights of Poland stopped the invading army at the Monastery of Częstochowa. The Swedish general laid siege to this basilica fortress declaring, “We will bring down this hen house, this chicken coop in three days.”
Then he experienced something he could have never imagined. He and his men saw a beautiful woman hovering over the basilica and directing the canon fire in such a way that the Swedish army was completely routed.
A testimony of this miraculous apparition of the Blessed Virgin was given by the general of the Swedish army, Burchard Muller. After the siege of Jasna Gora, General Muller spent some time in Krakow. In one of the churches, he gazed on the picture of the Madonna. Asked the reason for his amazement, he said in reply, “This is the woman who appeared to me, and directed a cannon against me with her own hand!”
Four
Vienna
By 1683 the Muslim Ottoman Empire had made its way all the way to the gates of Vienna, halfway through Europe with the intent of waging Jihad, a holy war to destroy Christianity in Europe. The Pope appealed to King Jan Sobieski of Poland. When Sobieski got the word from the Pope, he gathered his cavalry, called the Winged Hussars because they had sewn eagle wings to the back of their armor so that when they rode they looked like eagles flying. They immediately rode to Częstochowa. There they consecrated themselves to Mary and said, “In the name of Mary, we will conquer.”
They reached Vienna on the evening of September 11th, 1683. In the early morning of September the 12th, they attacked the significantly larger Muslim army and completely destroyed them.
When it was all over, Sobieski sent a message to The Pope. “We conquered in the name of Mary.” Ever since, September 12th has been The Feast of the Holy Name of Mary.
Whenever you find yourself in some suffering you cannot endure, some cross you can’t carry, some trials you can’t deal with, cry out to Mary. Call upon Mary, for by the Holy Name of Mary she will take care of you.
Five
When the Victory Comes
At the end of World War II when the Nazis pulled out of Poland, destroying everything as they left, the Soviet Communists came in and took over Poland. The Soviets arrested their top cardinal Wyszyński and put him in solitary confinement. And there he reflected on the history of his country, how in every dire situation, when things looked hopeless, the country turned to Mary and she set them free miraculously where there seemed to be no hope.
So somehow Wyszyński came up with a plan to clandestinely get word to all the people in the country. It took three years, but at the end of three years, in 1956, one million Poles gathered at the bright mountain, Częstochowa, and there they consecrated themselves to Mary. With every stanza of the consecration one million Poles cried out, “Queen of Poland, we promise!” an unconditional gift of themselves to Our Lady. Wyszyński was released, and it set in motion what would ultimately result in the fall of Communism in Poland and the regaining of religious freedom.
The Icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa is the image of a Sorrowful Mother, one who weeps at the thought of the eternal loss of even one of her children. This is why Mary appears so often around the world. She is on a rescue mission to save her children. And she is asking for our help.
She has specifically asked us to do four things: To consecrate ourselves to Her Immaculate Heart, to pray the Rosary every day, to practice the First Saturdays of Reparation, and to form Rosary prayer groups,