Today in the French town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the statue of Saint Sara-la-Kali, dressed in seven latyers of gowns, will be brought from her shrine by Roma men on white horses and bathed in the ocean. This event will be attended by hundreds of Catholics and is particularly important to the Roma people. Readerss will take crystals and even cards in bags and dip them in the ocean at the exact moment that the Statue of Saint Sarah is dipped into the water. Across the Ocean, I will be at the beach offering my own prayers and offerings, and anointing myself with her oil.

Who is Saint Sara-la-Kali?

The statue depicts a black woman or girl, decked in a crown and blue and white clothes, much like Mary, and indeed no discussion of Black Madonnas is complete without including this statue of Saint Sarah. But the question of who exactly this is supposed to be is a mystery.

I first heard of her many years ago as the secret daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdeline. She arrived on the shores of Camargue on a fragile boat with no oars with Mary Cleopas, Mary Salome, and Mary Magdeline. She is black indicating that she is hidden offspring, and her name is Sarah, meaning Princess.

Later I learned the more popular legends that claim her as an Egyptian girl that served the three Mary’s and is venerated for her charity. Egypt of course represents a land of mystery and magic and the Talmud even claims that Jesus had Egyptian secrets tatooed on his body.

Still other legends claim that she was a Roma Queen already in France, and that the shrine where her statue is now located was once a place of Mithraic Sacrifice.

And of course some claim that she is a Christianized Kali, whose veneration the Roma carried with them. Indeed recent genetic studies have shown the Roma throughout Europe are descended from dalits in India 1400 years ago.

So how do I honor her? D) All of the Above.

To my mind there is an honesty and even power in saying “I do not know” or “I cannot quite pin it down”. Indeed I feel that the mystery of the Black Madonnas overall is an invitation to contemplate how much we do not know, how much we cannot know, and how our ordinary methods of knowing fail us when faced with the ineffable.