The Black Madonna, Icon of Resistance, Mother of Chaos

Recently, I received an invitation from Christena Cleveland, author of God Is a Black Woman, to offer a blurb about her new book that comes out this fall, called The Black Madonna: Icon of Resistance & Nourisher of Souls. The title derives from bell hooks, who urged her people to “reclaim the Black Madonna as an icon of resistance.”  

I love the book, which is so needed in this time of resistance and chaos. It has been a secret dream all my life to see the Black community take this icon and run with it, which this book does with panache. The author has wrestled in depth with this wonderful figure and archetype.

Several years ago, I was asked to lecture at Morehouse University, where Howard Thurman is buried, on the Black Madonna. I was struck that so few of the 200 or so staff and faculty in attendance, all of whom were Black, had known about the Black Madonna. But this book brings her alive and lights a fire that, I am sure, will not burn out.

Here is my blurb: This is a moving, passionate, personal and well researched study of the Black Madonna born of the author’s pilgrimages by foot to obscure Black Madonna shrines in France and elsewhere as well as substantive academic research. The author identifies the Black Madonna as ‘the Icon of Resistance,’ ‘the Container of the God whom nothing can contain,’ ‘Mother of Chaos,’ ‘the perfect portal to our diasporic spiritual origins,’ and more.

The author offers a banquet of insight and meaning to many (but not all 450+) Black Madonna images and stories from Cuba to South Africa, from the Philippines to Czechoslovakia, from Haiti to France, from Africa to Belgium, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. In doing so, she invites us to renew our imaginations and prayer and spirituality–especially in critical times like we face today. She offers practices along the way that render the book practical as well as aspirational.

I count this among the most important, substantive, and insightful books ever written on the Black Madonna. It represents a new stage in Marian theology, and appropriately, it comes from the pen of a Black woman who is eager to move beyond a stale, flat, exclusively white and patriarchal version of God. Like Meister Eckhart, she “prays God to rid us of God.”

The Black Madonna, in choosing Christena to relay her story, has chosen wisely and astutely. Christena is a first-class storyteller, and the Black Madonna has many powerful stories to tell. Read this book and be prepared to welcome the divine feminine into your soul, body, spirit, and into humanity’s collective history once again. A truly revolutionary book!

I wrote about the Black Madonna in my book, The Hidden Spirituality of Men, and we have celebrated several Cosmic Masses in her honor.

Alessandra Belloni hails from southern Italy, where the Black Madonna tradition in Europe was first born. Recently, she wrote a very important book, Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna: Chants, Music, and the Sacred Practices of the Great Goddess. I was honored to write the Foreword to it. She has led retreats for decades to Black Madonna shrines in Southern Italy. She and Christena are sisters, one from the African American tradition and one from the Italian tradition, called by the Black Madonna to make herself known in these disturbing times, calling for immense death and also creativity.

While examining the Black Madonna around the world, Christena also offers deep insights on the tradition of the labyrinth, a practice that Episcopal priest Lauren Artress of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has brought to life in our times.

Banner Image: Black Madonna from the Regina Mundi church, Rockville, Soweto. Photo by Justin Hall on Flickr.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you relate to the Black Madonna as an Icon of Resistance and apt for our times of chaos and struggle?

Related Readings by Matthew Fox

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 231-244

Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Beautiful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God

Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart

Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book

Meister Eckhart: Mystic-Warrior For Our Time

A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 143-164.

Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic…And Beyond