In the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul in downtown Boston there is a beautiful and inviting little chapel. In the chapel, resides this Black Madonna. Black Madonna statues and paintings are found throughout Europe. They are Mary as manifestation of the feminine Divine.
As much as we Christians love stories of individuals defying Roman emperors and choosing Christianity even when it meant death, we need to remember that the majority of people living under the Roman empire did not choose Christianity. They had their temples destroyed, their sacred rituals outlawed, and they were told that they were now Christians, worshippers of one decidedly masculine God. (The English, French, and Spanish would replicate this process when they invaded what are now known as the Americas.) I truly believe that many of these people knew in their hearts that the Divine was both masculine and feminine, and they looked for the feminine Divine within this new religion that was forced upon them. And for her part, the feminine Divine responded to and reached out to them. They met in the story of Mary.
This is not the sentimentalized, obedient Mary that the patriarchal hierarchy of the Catholic Church would produce and preach - the girl-child Mary who responds meekly to the Angel Gabriel with downcast eyes. This is not the Mary of progressive Protestantism who gives birth to the baby Jesus and then politely exits stage left. This is Mary as Lady to monotheism’s Lord, and Mary as Our Mother to Christianity’s Our Father. Boston’s Black Madonna, in particular, is both Queen of Heaven and Mother Earth, re-tying together (the origin of the word religion) the heavenly and the earthly, just as Jesus re-ties together divinity and humanity.
I had been to pray before this statue a number of times before really considering the apple in her hand. I’ve read descriptions of Mary as the new Eve, obedient where Eve had been disobedient. And this is how images of Mary holding an apple are often interpreted. This has always seemed a bit simplistic to me though. This Mary is gazing right at me. Her gaze is intense and she is offering me the apple (a golden apple at that for those of you who read Greek and Roman mythology). What if the problem was never that Adam and Eve disobeyed God by taking something that was forbidden? What if everything went awry because Adam and Eve took what could only be rightfully received? In meditation I’ve learned that certain kinds of knowing cannot be grasped at or reached for with my ego and intellect. I have to be open to receiving them. Here Mary offers me the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All I have to do (this is one of those simple yet terrifying things, so I take a deep breath here), all I have to do is let go of all that I am grasping at and clinging to and hold out my open hands, ready to receive Her gifts.
(The lighting in the niche where this Black Madonna resides is not ideal for photography. If you want to see a better image, click through to the Cathedral's website here: https://www.stpaulboston.org/exploring-st-pauls)
