The Black Madonna
It is well known that our Templar forebears had a strong devotion to Our Lady, particularly at those shrines where she is venerated with a black statue. There is much speculation these days about the pagan origins of such statues, but one thing is certain, the Black Madonnas offer a distinctly different Marian message to the bright Madonnas. They remind us of the deep and fertile black earth which is our mother, the biosphere of which we are a part, and they point us towards those depths of inner experience where we may receive the gift of contemplation; where, in the Spirit, we unite with the Father, and like Mary conceive the divine Child within us.
At several of the various shrines of Our Lady ; Rue du Bac, La Salette, Lourdes and Fatima, for example, the Queen of Heaven comes to earth to reprove, advise, console and heal, with messages of love and good advice, whereas at shrines of the Black Madonna, Our Lady, like the earth itself, is often silent and offers a different kind of healing, a deep realisation of the sacral nature of our earthiness, a quiet healing of that wound of duality which can sometimes fester in an unhealthy fanaticism. The bright Virgin of Heaven, conceived without sin, is also the fertile Mother of us all and lest we try to forget our feet of clay before our time, the Black Madonna helps us to truly incarnate, "ground" ourselves and thus find the elusive God within as well as the God above.
At several of the various shrines of Our Lady ; Rue du Bac, La Salette, Lourdes and Fatima, for example, the Queen of Heaven comes to earth to reprove, advise, console and heal, with messages of love and good advice, whereas at shrines of the Black Madonna, Our Lady, like the earth itself, is often silent and offers a different kind of healing, a deep realisation of the sacral nature of our earthiness, a quiet healing of that wound of duality which can sometimes fester in an unhealthy fanaticism. The bright Virgin of Heaven, conceived without sin, is also the fertile Mother of us all and lest we try to forget our feet of clay before our time, the Black Madonna helps us to truly incarnate, "ground" ourselves and thus find the elusive God within as well as the God above.
Our Lady of Montserrat, holds the world globe whilst her Divine Son blesses with his right hand and holds a pine cone, a symbol of fertility, in his left.
‘as Adam came from the virgin earth, so Christ came out of the Virgin Mary’. St Ambrose
