OUR LADY OF
CZESTOCHOWA
Ester, Chapter 8,
Verse 17
In
each and every province and in each and every city, wherever the king’s order
arrived, there was merriment and joy, banqueting and feasting for the Jews. And
many of the peoples of the land identified themselves as Jews, for fear of the Jews fell upon them.
So, Ester saves the Jews and now it is cool to be a
Jew. So cool that in Persia there were Jewish posers. Interesting. Here we see
God’s promise to those who trust that after the trial, will come rejoicing;
just as after the darkness of night the sun does rise.
The Hunter becomes the Hunted[1]
·
With
Haman's plan to kill Mordecai and all the other Jews almost fully foiled (they
just need to officially reverse his orders), everything else starts to look up
for the heroes too.
·
King
Ahasuerus gives control of Haman's house to Esther, who then gives it to
Mordecai. Mordecai also gets the signet ring (bearing the royal seal) that
Haman had had formerly.
·
Next,
Esther weeps at the king's feet and begs him not to go through with Haman's
plan (which you would tend to think was already pretty much over, considering
the king just had Haman killed).
·
The
king agrees, authorizing Mordecai to revoke the decree using the king's seal.
·
Mordecai
has letters written in all the different languages of the king's empire,
telling people not to go through with the massacre and giving the Jews
permission to defend themselves using violence, if necessary.
·
Mordecai
is decked out in royal robes and a crown and the people of Susa rejoice. All
the Jews are joyful. They celebrate in their different towns and cities when
the good news arrives.
While stationed in the Army I was responsible for the
security and protection of ammunition depots which for the most part was
protected by the Polish
Labor Service. Interacting with men who always professed great devotion to Our
Lady of Czestochowa.
The image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, also
known as the Black Madonna, was traditionally believed to have been painted by
St. Luke the Evangelist on a cypress wood panel from a table used by the Holy
Family in Nazareth. It was said to have been brought from Jerusalem by St.
Helen and was enshrined in Constantinople for 500 years. It was given to a
Greek princess married to a Ruthenian nobleman and it was housed in the royal
palace at Belz in the Ukraine for the next 600 years. Art historians believe it
is a Byzantine icon of the Hodigitria type dating from the 6th - 9th Century. The
image was brought to Poland in 1382 by Ladislaus of Opole who rescued the
painting from Belz while escaping an attack by the Tartars who had damaged the
painting with an arrow. On his way to Silesia, Ladislaus stopped to rest in the
town of Czestochowa near the church on Jasna Góra (Bright Hill). He believed
that it was Our Lady’s desire for her image to remain in Czestochowa so he left
the image at the church and invited the Pauline monks from Hungary to be its
guardians.
On April 14, 1430, robbers, sometimes
associated with the Hussites of Bohemia, looted the monastery and made three
slashes on the face of Our Lady in an attempt to remove valuable stones,
finally smashing the image into three pieces. In order to repair the icon, the
original paint was removed, and the icon was repainted. Although the icon was
restored, the slashes in Our Lady’s face remain visible today.
The image of Our Lady of Czestochowa is
associated with several miraculous events. One of the most spectacular occurred
in 1655 during the height of the Protestant Revolution. The Swedish Lutheran
army invaded Poland winning victories over the city after city including Cracow
and Warsaw. The Polish King fled the country. When the Swedish army came to
Jasna Góra hoping to plunder the sacred site, the monks refused to surrender
although they were greatly outnumbered. The following account is from the
Polish historian Norman Davies as quoted in Warren Carroll’s series on
Christianity.
“When negotiations brought no result, the
Swedes began a violent bombardment of the walls. Then, in order to spread fear
among the defenders, they started to hurl blazing firebrands, setting the
monastery’s barn alight together with a great quantity of corn. Next, all
around the monastery, they set up a camp with wooden palisades and gun
emplacements…But their attack had little effect. The walls were banked with
earth on the inside, and only the cannon displaced a few bricks. Before long,
the defenders opened fire in reply. The aim of their gunners was so accurate that
after three hours the Swedes were obliged to pull back with great loss.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of houses adjacent to the monastery, where the enemy
had found shelter, set their homes on fire, not counting the cost..The Swedes
renewed their attack on the 19th of November, the day of the Transfiguration of
the Virgin…the official printed a description of this siege, which records that
bullets and missiles fell so thick on the church and tower that they seemed to
be in flames. But…the cannon balls bounced off the walls and tiles or flew over
the church roof, causing no damage….Muller (the Swedish commander) was most
angered by the monks, who would climb to the top of the tower and in full choir
pour down pious hymns on his soldiers…
Jasna Góra was not saved by men…A thick
mist screened the monastery from attack…Muller himself saw a Lady in a shining
robe on the walls, priming the cannon and tossing shells back in the direction
from which they came…He (General Muller) launched this last attack on Christmas
Day, firing off all his guns in one salvo, and sending his entire army to storm
the walls…But at that very moment, he suffered a fatal accident. He was eating
breakfast in a fairly distant house, and cursing Jasna Góra with blasphemies,
when suddenly an iron shot penetrated the wall, knocked down all the plates,
bottles and glasses from the table, scattered the guests, and struck him in the
arm…At last, in the night before St. Stephen’s Day, the Swedes started to drag
the guns from their emplacements, to collect their equipment, and to direct
their wagons in the direction of Klobuck…Of course, no heretic will believe
that cannon balls were repulsed from the walls of Jasna Góra by supernatural
means…but all that I have described is true.”
The victory of Our Lady of Czestochowa at
Jasna Góra turned the tide of the war. In 1656, the Polish King Jan Casimir
proclaimed the Mother of God the “Queen of the Polish Crown” and the shrine at
Jasna Góra, the “Mount of Victory” and the spiritual capital of Poland. In
recognition of the miraculous image, Pope Clement XI donated a crown to be
placed on the image in 1717. Thieves stole the bejeweled crown in 1909. Pope
St. Pius X replaced the 1717 crown with a crown of gold.
Our Lady intervened again in 1920 when the
Russian army was about to invade Warsaw. As they were about to cross the
Vistula River on September 15th, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the image of
Our Lady of Czestochowa appeared in the clouds over Warsaw and the Russian Army
retreated. Shortly after this Miracle of the Vistula, in 1925, Pope Pius XI
designated May 3rd as the feast day of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
After the liberation of Poland from Nazi
occupation, 1.5 million people gathered at Jasna Góra in 1945 to rededicate the
nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Pope John Paul II visited the image of
Our Lady of Czestochowa four times during his pontificate. Our Lady’s
intercession is credited with the liberation of Poland from Communist rule.
The holy painting enshrined at Czestochowa
has been a lighthouse of hope during centuries of hardship and defeat. Today,
the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa attracts millions of who love and honor
Our Lady’s intercession.
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