Guingamp

Our Lady of Good Help

French: Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours,
Breton Celtic: Itron Vari Gwir Our Zigour

In the Basilica Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, rue Notre-Dame, 22200 Guingamp, Cotes d’Armor department of Brittany. The heads of Mother and Child are what is left of the 14th century original or a 17th century copy, life size, painted wood.

The beautiful French website Lieux Sacrés explains the name Guingamp thus: “Nowadays (the Breton-Celtic name) Guingamp gets translated as “white camp” or “white place”, which is not very evocative. Gwyn, now translated as “white”, was the name for the higher, spiritual sphere in the druidic cosmology. So even if Gwynfyd may well be something quite different, let’s translate Guingamp as ‘the high place’ or ‘the spiritual center’.”

There are various traditions about the origins of this Black Madonna. She is said to have come to Guingamp, Brittany from Marseille, where a crusader had brought her from the East in the 12th century. Some scholars suggest that acquiring a Black Madonna was a deliberate attempt to compete with Chartres for pilgrims because of the riches they bring to any city that can attract them. Certainly, there are noteworthy parallels to Chartres: a copy of its labyrinth and a tradition of an even older Black Madonna under the earth known by the title Notre Dame Sous Terre or Our Lady of the Underworld, as I call her. That original Dark Mother was called Notre-Dame du Halgoët, Celtic for Underground. According to the website of Patrimoine de (Heritage of) Guingamp, an association dedicated to the history of the town, this ancient Lady of the Underworld resided “under the paving stones of the porch, perhaps in a crypt, which may have been the shrine of a Pagan mother-goddess, symbol of fertility, or [the sanctuary] of a Black Madonna, like at Chartres.” Sadly, no trace of this place remains, but Lieux Sacrés suggests that the chapel of the Black Madonna was built on top of it. So it is quite possible that this was already a holy place dedicated to the Great Mother in pre-Christian times!

At the center of the labyrinth is a black stone with the inscription: Ave Maria – a black stone to represent the Black Madonna, the womb and the core of God. Dr. Eben Alexander, author of “Proof of Heaven” vividly describes entering the womb of God during his near-death experience: “I continued moving forward and found myself entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black as it was, it was also brimming over with light: (…) My situation was, strangely enough, something akin to that of a fetus in a womb. (…) In this case, the “mother” was God, the Creator, the Source who is responsible for making the universe and all in it. (…) It was as if I were being born into a larger world, and the universe itself was like a giant cosmic womb”.[i]

Orthodox, patriarchal thinkers often feel the need to assert that Mary leads us to Jesus, not to herself. But here in Guingamp somebody made the statement that the goal of the spiritual path is indeed the Black Madonna, who is inseparably one with God.
 In 1793, during the French Revolution, one of the men responsible for mutilating her, saved the heads of Mother and Child. Some part of him must have doubted whether smashing a holy, ancient statue of the Mother of God was a good idea. He kept the heads hidden until it was safe to return them to the Church. This he did in great secrecy in 1805. In 1854, the church was renovated, and its Black Madonna reassembled using remnants of other statues that had been mutilated: a resurrection! But alas, no arms could be found! Luckily, when she is dressed in her sumptuous robes, one doesn’t notice her missing limbs.

As a cover for her mutilated body, her clothes became very important, and she accumulated a valuable wardrobe. Other Black Madonnas also have a great wardrobe, e.g. Our Lady of Le Puy. I guess it comes with being a queen. The Countess of Chambord, Marie Therese de Modena, the day after her wedding to Henry V (pretender to the crown of France from 1844 to 1883), sent half her wedding dress to be made into robes for the Black Madonna.

The statue used to sit higher up on the wall between the two incense angels, where the black crucifix is now. (Interesting that hardly anybody cares about a black Jesus because there is no collective subconscious memory of a dark God, like there is of a dark Mother-Goddess.) She was lowered down in 1954 so as to make her changing clothes easier. Today, she has her own wardrobe and changes her outfits several times a year.

Since her mutilation and rough re-assemblage, Begg says: “the statue dislikes being moved and, at its coronation procession (in 1857), produced such a down-pour of rain that no further attempt has been made.”[ii] So a copy was made in the 19th century. She is called the Procession Virgin and enjoys equal veneration with sumptuous clothes and kisses from the pilgrims. Before this copy was made, a gilded wooden statue was carried in procession by women. It received such love from the faithful that due to all their rubbing and kissing she needed new golden paint every year.

Photo by Alexandre Lamoureux

 The feast of this Black Madonna is celebrated each year on the first weekend in July following the old feast of the visitation (July 2nd, moved to May 31st after Vatican II council). Like other such festivities in honor of the Virgin Mary in Brittany, it is referred to as ‘the Pardon of Our Lady’. (I haven’t seen her feast days called that anywhere else.) Michèle Ring, the French lady who pointed me to this Black Madonna explains: “Pardons are indeed a Breton thing, most towns and villages have them, they celebrate over 800 Breton saints and of course the Holy Virgin is well represented as well as her mother Sainte Anne, also patron saint of Brittany. They are wonderful celebrations, pilgrimages with traditional music and costumes, still very well attended. Well worth participating in one if you ever come to Brittany (between May and October).”

I think the idea is that participating in this day long ceremony will ensure the faithful of Mary’s favor and pardon and whom she forgives, God cannot condemn. For we see in the story of the wedding feast at Cana (John 2:1-12) that Jesus cannot deny his mother anything she wants, even if he is inclined otherwise. It seems, in Brittany other great saints have the same power! Why not?! If they have reached complete divine union, they are “divinized” as Catholics call it.

photo and info from the town’s website guingamp.maville.com

The Pardon of Our Lady begins with church services during the day, followed by a candlelight procession into the night and 3 bonfires on the main square. The three fires go back to the White Confraternity (Frérie-Blanche) of this Madonna. You see, every respectable Madonna needs a confraternity to organize her feasts. The one of Our Lady of Good Help was founded in 1356 and was made up of members of the clergy, the nobility, and commoners. Its biblical motto was: “the rope with three threads is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4.12). To this day, its members strive for bonds of solidarity and mutual assistance. The three large fires lit each year at the corners of the Place du Centre, at the end of the nocturnal procession, symbolize the three orders of the brotherhood. They usually manage to draw a crowd of about 1,500 faithful to this feast day.

 Devotion to the original Black Madonna of Guingamp, Notre-Dame du Halgouët (Our Lady from under the earth), is inextricably entwined with Charles de Blois, Duke of Brittany from 1341 until his death, whose nickname was "the Saint". He had a very particular devotion to her and was largely responsible for the development of her cult and pilgrimage after he was released from English captivity in 1356. It seems like he attributed his freedom to the Madonna’s intercession, for he made some major donations to her shrine. He also had two hospitals built for poor sick people and the elderly without support. At least in part to cover the cost of these institutions, but certainly also for the greater glory of the Virgin and her manifestation as the Black Madonna, he created an annual fair. It became one of the best known and most popular in all of Brittany, held on the first Saturday of July, which he associated with two major events, the annual pardon of Notre-Dame du Halgouët and the feast of Saint Martin (patron saint of the Capetian dynasty of King Louis IX of France, whose main feast day is November 11th, but whose secondary feast day is celebrated on July 4th in commemoration of the anniversary of his ordination as bishop in 371 and the translation of his relics in 381.)

With the centuries this Pardon of Our Lady attracted more and more pilgrims, reaching its peak in the 17th century as a major destination for those seeking salvation for their souls. The church kept growing with the crowds. Remnants of the 11th century structure can still be seen inside the beautiful basilica, which was built from the 12th to the 16th century.

photo from www.guingamp-paimpol.com

After the Revolution, the July pardon had resumed timidly, probably from 1799. Later it once again attracted crowds and regained its rank among the large Breton gatherings. But when in 1859, the new bishop of Saint-Brieuc and Tréguier thought of banning it, because of the disorders it caused, there was a general outcry among the clergy and faithful of Guingamp as well as the surrounding parishes. That bishop didn’t last long. After him came a better leader, Mgr Le Mée, under whom Marian worship developed again in a spectacular way. The Virgin of Good Help was the first in Brittany and the fourth in France to receive from Rome "the insignia of the golden crown”, (Roman foundation of Count Sforza Pallavicini, Italian Jesuit priest, theologian and historian of the Council of Trent, he was made cardinal in 1657 by Pope Alexander VII), for the coronation of the most famous Madonnas in the world. On September 8, 1857, the coronation ceremony took place in the presence of four bishops including an American, more than six hundred clergy, and an enormous crowd.

 Ean Begg mentions: “Pagan cult at Le Grand Rocher opposite the basilica”. I don’t know what he is talking about but there are some amazing menhirs in the area. The closest is the Menhir de Pergat en Louargat, about 20 minutes from Guingamp by car.

I know Chartres has its own magic, but in my mind Guingamp wins because it is committed to the Blackness of its Madonna instead of whitening her beautiful face, it doesn’t cover its labyrinth with chairs to keep people from walking it, and it continues to express its devotion with a great festival procession etc.

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Footnotes:
[i] Dr. Eben Alexander, Proof of Heaven, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, N.Y.: 2012, pp. 46-7

[ii] Ean Begg, The Cult of The Black Virgin, Penguin Books, London: 1985, p.190