So welcome to our daily rosary meditation.

Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

For today we are at the shrine of our lady of Chinstahova where the miraculous icon of the

black Madonna is kept. Now the oldest document dating to 1474 called the transfer of the

painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary which St Luke painted with his own hands.

This document relates that Luke painted the holy icon

and that he completed this work in Jerusalem prior to the assumption of

the Blessed Virgin.

The holy image was painted on the top of the table at which the Holy Family once used to pray and eat.

It is said to have been requested by the faithful of Jerusalem who wished to have Mary's likeness as a memorial of her extraordinary beauty.

So Luke represented the Blessed Virgin with the child Jesus on her left arm.

And the icon was venerated by the Christians in Jerusalem until it was transferred

to Constantinople by Queen Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine,

where it remained for many centuries.

However, at one point, the icon was brought to the castle of Bells on the Polish-Ukraine border.

But then the castle was besieged by attackers and an arrow pierced the face of the Holy Virgin.

It was at that point that Prince Lattice Law prayed to our lady for help, immediately thick

fog enveloped the enemy and taking advantage of this, Lattice Law repulsed the attackers and defeated

them.

Recognizing the miraculous nature of the icon in 1382,

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