The title for today’s Daily Meditations comes from a Cosmic Mass we celebrated a number of years ago. (We have celebrated several Cosmic Masses in honor of the Black Madonna over the years, but this title especially stays with me.)
Tomorrow night, Tuesday, September 8, is a special Black Madonna Feast Day in Italy. We celebrate the Black Madonna in a special “Feast Day Party.” All are welcome. Presenters represent three generations and diverse spiritual traditions eager to recover the Black Madonna icon and archetype.
Cameron Trimble is a UCC minister, theologian and president of Convergence, the sponsoring organization. Alessandra Belloni is from southern Italy, the gateway for the Black Madonna entering Europe. Artist in residence at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City, she wrote the book, Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna: Chants, Music, and Sacred Practices of the Great Goddess, and leads Black Madonna retreats in Italy.
Another presenter on Tuesday is Christena Cleveland, author of the new book, The Black Madonna: Icon of Resistance & Nourisher of Souls. It is an exceptional book and represents a new generation of theologians wrestling with the deeper meaning and attraction of this figure.
Being a black woman herself, Christena underwent solo pilgrimages to numerous shrines, some known and many unknown, sprinkled around France where the Black Madonna was honored over many centuries. (My first encounter of the Black Madonna was at Chartres Cathedral in France in 1967 when I was a student in Paris. A 27-year-old Dominican priest at the time, I had never heard of her in all my years as a Roman Catholic in America and have carried her with me ever since.)
Christena, a theologian in her own right, has been inspired by numerous black leaders devoted to the Black Madonna including bell hooks, Anna Julia Cooper, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Howard Thurman and others. In her book, she uncovers many traditions of the Black Madonna in communities around the world and has now launched a school to train people in honoring the Black Madonna.
I was honored to write a Foreword to Alessandra Belloni’s book and wrote about the Black Madonna in my book on recovering the Sacred Masculine. Part of the healthy and sacred masculine is welcoming the return of the Divine Feminine. The Black Madonna archetype is one of the great goddess figures that has influenced Christianity over many centuries and is understandably undergoing a return in our time.
Why understandably? Because Gaia, our Mother Earth, is being horribly neglected and abused by powerful forces in our time. We are all experiencing the effects of this aggression in the form of climate change, extinction of species, pollution of waters and air, and ever more degradation of Mother Earth.
The president of the United States, labeling climate change a “hoax,” is gutting the EPA and laws enacted by a Republican president and both parties 56 years ago to protect the Earth and our environment. His party, running Congress, either claps their hands or sits on them. And SCOTUS cheers them on.
The Black Madonna is returning as a spokesperson for the rise of oppressed peoples, both women and people of color, after centuries of patriarchy and colonialism. The Black Madonna stands with the oppressed, including but not limited to, women and slaves. (The Black Madonna shrine in Cobre, Cuba, where Thomas Merton underwent his conversion that resulted in his becoming a monk, was and still is a shrine to the Black Madonna and the slaves of the Caribbean.) The Black Madonna stands with gay and lesbian and trans people as well.
In the shadow of Gloria Steinem’s death, a leader in the women’s movement, it seems especially timely to remember the Black Madonna. Join us on Tuesday evening!
For the transcript of Matthew’s video reflection, click HERE.
Banner image: Invitation to the Black Madonna Feast Day Party, September 8, 2026.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you see the role of the Black Madonna coming into its own in our times and why? Do you recognize a role for the Black Madonna in your own consciousness and practice as well?
Related Reading by Matthew Fox
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors To Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 29f., 231-244.
Foreword to Alessandra Belloni, Healing Journeys with the Black Madonna: Chants, Music, and Sacred Practices of the Great Goddess, pp. ix-xviii.
A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 143-164.
Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest, pp. 356, 417, 221-225, 302.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, pp. 11-34, 56f.
A Spirituality Named Compassion.
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond, pp. 45-58.
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God, pp. 91-101.
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality, pp. 203-217.
