Ouidah: Poem to Mary (after the abolition of slavery)

Loving Mother... the night has been long and hard...

Your black people arrived late. They are in a hurry and full of zeal to take their place in the concert of nations that rises from this land of exile to you, O sweet mother of Jesus.

O Mother so loving, the night has been hard and long, difficult and long the slumber of your Black people...

The others... friends or foes, who came from afar, talked about your Black people and your Black people listened without understanding. What a nightmare when your Black  people understood that they were only bystanders to problems that affected them! Their destiny was set up and discussed about...

They were afflicted and mute witnesses, even though they had something to say, something to shout out, a personal stand to make! Loving mother, isn't it true that it was a disconcerting and mortifying mystery for your Black people? The night has been hard and long...

Thus spoke the Spirit: Your Black people belong to your family

Yet from hill to hill the partridges announced the break of the day... From village to village, breaking the silence of the dying night, the roosters sang to a new day. Glory of Jerusalem, joy of Israel, you are the glory and the joy of your Black sons.

And because the Spirit said it, He said it once for all; your Black people with all the other nations are no guests or strangers in God's house. They are the co-citizens of the saints; they are the Lord's family.

You are therefore the glory of your Black people; you are their joy, O sweet Mother of Jesus. Your Black people compete in exalting you. And they pick up with one voice the cry of all generations:

You are blessed among all women!

And blessed is the fruit of your womb!

Blessed are you, for you believed!

In your honor, your Black people have sculpted an image of wood and ebony, the strong black ebony... To venerate you, your Black people sculpted an image for you, white with the elephant's ivory. Both images can be black or white without any inconvenience. Don't they speak about a spiritual, supernatural world? About a world of which you are the Queen, the world of souls, of souls that are in love with God, all reddened, without any discrimination, by the blood of the Lamb...

May your praise never leave the hearts and the lips of your Black people, but increase like the triumphant morning, reaching to the infinite space of the heavens.

Make us aware of God, tell us...

Mother of Good Counsel, illuminate us, and make us always more aware of the supernatural, more aware of God. Tell us that all the events of this world have value, and have solutions beyond the earthly dimension...

Mother of Divine Grace, may Jesus come through you! Jesus, indestructible light of the nations, the day without decline for the nations...

Virgin Mother, look upon us, love us, and come to our help...

O you, who are a giant on the ways of love, wait for us on our journey, attract us, and lead us. Because we are weak, full of fears, ignorant, hesitant, and indecisive. Remember that you are the older sister...

You are patient, because little brothers and sisters just follow behind. Remember that you are the mother full of love...

You are attentive: because your sons try to walk, beloved sister, very dear mother, wait for us, draw us near, lead us, support us, pray, pray for us.

Are you not the virginal music of heaven's feast?

You are the focal point of all eyes, the meeting point of all hearts. Gather us from all four corners of the earth. You are the refuge of every heart. Gather us all, so we may live like brothers, in your maternal tenderness.

Every heart is moved and beats fast when the drums and the songs start up the dance, when the joyous clamors of the feast mingle. Are you not the sweet melody, the virginal music of heaven's feast? Faithful Virgin, keep us pure... Revive in us the hunger for inaccessible joys...

You are beautiful and dazzling like the morn, always renewed in its youth and freshness...

You are beautiful like a coffee field at dawn, a scented coffee field in bloom...

You are beautiful and fascinating like a forest of palm trees undulating under a clear blue sky. You are beautiful and enchanting like a pure spring running between rocks. You are beautiful and graceful like the moon moving in a sky washed by the tornado. You are beautiful and splendid like a majestic flame rising up in the savannah night...

You are beautiful, all beautiful, so beautiful that one who has seen you would like to die to see you again. Wonder of God's wonders, you are the mother of all. Black and White, Yellow and Red, draw us near from all four corners of the earth and make us enter in the fraternal feast of justice and living charity...

Queen of the Universe, carry us to the eternal wedding feast where you are forever the celebrated Woman, O Virgin Mother of Jesus.

____________

Jacques Amoussou, Le culte de Marie dans la spiritualité africaine au Dahomey en Afrique noire, Grand Séminaire Saint Gall, Oudiah 1974.