Her dark wounded face was everywhere. During my years as a Catholic schoolgirl in the 1950s, statues and pictures of saints on “holy cards” were standard in church, school, and homes but of all these holy people, one stood above and apart. In the community of Polish immigrants in Amsterdam, New York, the scarred face of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa was most beloved, because she alone represented our people’s struggle for nationhood. 

The Black Madonna painting is said to have been brought to Czestochowa, Poland, by a Hungarian prince, who entrusted her to a group of monks. The monks built a monastery where she still resides, and like many other Black Madonnas throughout the world, she performs the occasional miracle.

The black-robed nuns who were our teachers said her skin was black from years of exposure to candle smoke. I believed that story, and many others they told, until I entered the wider world.

Hussites who fought against the Catholic church attacked the monastery in 1430, slashing her painted face with a sword, but they lost the battle that day. She also gets credit for the retreat of Swedish troops who invaded in 1655. In 1656, the Polish king declared Our Lady of Częstochowa the “Queen of Poland,” creating a lasting symbol of national identity at a time when one was sorely needed.  In 1920, she again came to the rescue when the Soviet Red Army was about to take Warsaw, only to be defeated after the entire nation prayed to her. During the Communist era, her home in Czestochowa became the center of resistance and her image can still be found in many Polish homes.  

She is revered as a symbol of solidarity with those who suffer, and for centuries, that was the fate of the people of Poland, land of my ancestors.  

But as a young woman in the 1970s, I wanted no part of female suffering. It was the height of the second wave of American feminism. I devoured the words of Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem, and Adrienne Rich. I was proud of fellow New Yorker and Congressperson Bella Abzug, who joined with Shirley Chisolm and others who founded the National Women’s Political Caucus. Feminists advocated for equal rights and responsibilities for both women and men. Being an active, proud woman was fresh and new, and like many back then, I longed to forge my own destiny.

As a girl, I had watched my mother suffer. My father was prone to rages, often bringing her, my sister Judy and me to tears. Once she threatened to leave, frightening Judy.

“She said she was going to pack her suitcase,” Judy whispered.

“She won’t leave,” I said. I knew even then it was an idle promise.

To my mind, the Black Madonna seemed not so much a loving mother as another suffering one. In fact, she was the mother who endured the greatest suffering of all, the loss of her child. My grandmother freely dealt out hugs and kisses, but also urged Mom to “keep the peace.”  My mother, Lucille, was emotionally distant. I learned passivity at her knee.  I know she loved me, but “Get over it” was her most frequent answer to my little girl problems. 

Moving into my first apartment, shared with two other girls, was a bold move. I began to learn what assertiveness meant. I moved farther away to college and though I attended mass every Sunday, I considered other ways to express my spirit. Passive behavior like my mother’s was weak in the 1960s. And the Black Madonna was the very picture of passivity.

Then came women’s groups with their study of feminine spirituality. I learned that many goddesses were pictured as black, among them Artemis, Isis, Ceres, and Demeter. The gypsies revere St. Sarah, a Black Madonna who is said to have come ashore from Egypt on the southern coast of France in 42 A.D. A servant girl, she is honored by the Roma, people who have known persecution and discrimination.

Riane Eisler, in her book The Chalice and the Blade, wrote that if “the central religious figure was a woman giving birth and not a man dying on a cross.. then life and the love of life… and not the fear of death…would be dominant in society as well as art.”  I quoted her statement in my memoir about growing up suffering, but I have since learned that both life and death are parts of human existence we do well to honor.

My religious school may have gone too far, glorifying pain in song, prayer and visual image- or I may have misinterpreted its intent. In art museum displays of medieval art, I still cringe before the bloody body on the cross. But I also see the value in honoring suffering and using it as a path to empathy and compassion.

Human suffering can lead to solidarity with those who suffer, like the Polish people struggling against oppression. Like abused women like my mom. Like refugees and asylum seekers at our southern border.

An old Polish hymn called Beloved Mother, sung throughout my childhood, especially at funerals, and so excruciatingly slowly I longed for it to end, was, I often said, too much wailing. Now, I’m not so sure. People sometimes need to sing their hearts out. Middle Eastern women ululate, a high-pitched sound of both joy and sorrow, depending on the occasion. It’s loud as can be and far from passive.

Drawn to examine this concept, I read more about the Black Madonna, determined to incorporate her into my feminist view of life, and even writing two novels exploring her role in history.

Most women have been scarred, emotionally if not physically. Most of us at times feel unattractive. We use moisturizer and makeup and concealer, covering our scars. But on the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, the scars remain, obvious and visible.  

Negative stereotypes of my uneducated ancestors led many to reject their Polish American ethnicity. I felt the scars of “dumb Polack” jokes, and even laughed uneasily, to get along, to be a ‘good sport.’ But in recent years, I have reclaimed who I am, and with it, the elements the Black Madonna represents. Not just the mourning mother, but the upright, scarred woman who gazes unflinching and steady. She inspires me to straighten my shoulders and walk tall into what remains of my life, embracing the sad with the happy, for both are part of the human story. She is my mother now. Whatever I endure, she is with me always.

– Linda C. Wisniewski

Note: This piece also appears in Linda C. Wisniewski’s collection Old Women and Other Strangers, published by Catherine Street Press (her own imprint).