VISUAL MEDITATION - "Africa's Invitation to Freedom"

A Reflection for "Juneteenth" inspired by the paintings at the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance in Popenguine, Senegal, West Africa.

By Paul G. Chandler - June 19, 2026:

Stations of the Cross 2 and 4 paintings at the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance

in Popenguine, Senegal, West Africa

I grew up in Africa. It is my heart’s home, and naturally, it has influenced the shaping of my spiritual journey more than any other place.

On this day of Juneteenth, when we commemorate the freedom of enslaved African Americans in 1865 as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation, I am reminded of a recent visit to beautiful Senegal, West Africa where I was leading a CARAVAN tour that explored the country’s culture, art, and spirituality. We began our journey on the picturesque historic Island of Goree at La Maison des Esclaves (the House of Slaves), a UNESCO World Heritage site, a major point of departure for the Atlantic slave trade, known for its infamous "Door of No Return.” We concluded our journey at the scenic Atlantic coastal village of Popenguine, with a visit to one of the largest pilgrimage sites in Africa, known as La Basilique Notre-Dame de la Délivrance (the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance).

(L) The "Door of No Return" at the House of Slaves on Goree Island, Senegal

(R) The Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance in Popenguine, Senegal

Every year at the end of May, over 100,000 Senegalese and other West Africans make a 43-mile pilgrimage to this shrine, referred to as the “Lourdes of Senegal.” Christians and Muslims walk together for many miles, shepherded by both priests and imams. It is a remarkable show of interreligious harmony, on pilgrimage to this revered site out of respect for the figure of Mary, who is venerated in both Christianity and Islam.

Upon entering the church, we were immediately struck by its culturally integrated artwork that deliberately conveyed the universal and inclusive nature of the Divine Artist. While there is both a statue and stained-glass window of a Black Madonna, we were particularly inspired by the paintings of the Stations of the Cross featuring artistic representations of an African Jesus. For more than a century, this shrine has been a place where millions of pilgrims have come seeking hope, comfort, and spiritual deliverance – seeking freedom in one aspect or another in their lives. The church’s artwork profoundly illustrates the spirit of this sacred place.

Black Madonna statue (L) and "dalle de verre" stained glass window of a Black Madonna (R) at

the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance in Popenguine, Senegal

Over a century ago, the foundational philosopher of African liberation, Edward Blyden, said that Africa is “the spiritual reservoir of the world.” I couldn’t agree more. Spirituality is part of their DNA in a way I have not experienced anywhere else, and we have much to learn from Africans about the spiritual dimension of life. Within their spirituality is the common refrain of experiencing freedom – an inner, personal liberation.

The older I get, the more I realize that freedom relates to every part of me – spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, physically. How often do we dream of what it would be like to be completely free? We may have our own dreams of freedom, of ridding ourselves forever of everything that holds us back and weighs us down. Perhaps we can identify with the slave sculpture by Michelangelo in the Galleria dell’ Accademia in Florence; the figure is only partially carved out of the stone because the artist wanted to express its trapped condition. Michelangelo had a beautiful explanation as to why sculpting from marble-block was his favorite medium. He said he felt as if he was “freeing a figure that was imprisoned in the stone.”

Years ago, while stranded in Burkina Faso, West Africa due to a coup d'état, I first read Robert Louis Stevenson’s well-known novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The tale brilliantly captures a tension within us all. Dr. Henry Jekyll, a genteel London physician, concocts a drug that changes his personality, thereby becoming Mr. Hyde, the physical representation of his darkest self. The story gradually reveals the powerful struggle between his liberated and captive natures. Dr. Jekyll struggles to resist Mr. Hyde, but eventually his captive side gains the upper hand and Mr. Hyde ends Dr. Jekyll’s life. This inner sense of captivity exists within us all.  

In my own faith tradition, I am reminded of how my namesake speaks about the “glorious freedom of the children of God” that is available to us all. I believe this is exactly what is being communicated by the artist who portrayed Jesus as an African in the Stations of the Cross paintings at the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance in Senegal. While pilgrims can identify with the African Jesus’s suffering, they have often also experienced a profound spiritual freedom in and through it all. By taking this annual pilgrimage, they are demonstrating that the spiritual journey can be a road to greater and greater freedom.

Photos of the interior of the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance in Popenguine, Senegal

Freedom is often one of the most difficult things we are able to fully experience. Many in our world feel restricted in one way or another, as if their hands and feet were chained together. Others feel they need to hid behind masks, concealing their real-life situations. However, on a day like Juneteenth, we are reminded that the Divine Artist is in the business of setting people free, inviting them to new beginnings.

Africans have a greater experiential understanding of freedom than any other people I have met in the world. The freedom they have experienced from the Creator is not so much a tenet they believe as it is an experience that they have realized. The late Richard Gray, a renowned historian of African history, wrote, “One of the deepest and most enduring desires of all African societies is the anxiety to eliminate evil.” I have personally seen my African brothers and sisters experience the spiritual life as an ultimate source of power, capable of successfully overcoming whatever limits, besets or destroys life’s fullness, leading to deep inner freedom. I have heard them describe life’s spiritual dimension as “an indescribable release.” Many Africans understand the Divine Artist as being all about liberation – rescuing and delivering humanity. They resonate deeply with the appeal of the late Desmond Tutu of Cape Town: “Say to yourselves in your heart, ‘God loves me…I am of infinite value to God.’ God created me for freedom…freedom is God-given.”

Stations of the Cross paintings (3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 ) depicting an African Jesus

at the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance

Once when visiting the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, I saw a moving sculpture of an African slave created by an African artist. The slave had been chained to a huge ball, but the chain was broken and lay at his feet; he was now free. It is a powerful reminder of what Africans and those in the African diaspora have experienced and hence can teach us. The most vivid image to many Africans of their Creator is that of a Divine Liberator in all dimensions of life: the healer of their fears, concerns and illnesses, the one who sets people free in the here and now.

The story of Jesus (Isa) resonates deeply with the Christian and Muslim pilgrims in Senegal who journey to the Basilica of Our Lady of Deliverance each year. Represented as an African figure in these Stations of the Cross, they see Jesus’s life as an extended narrative of freedom, passing through the greatest of life’s hardships toward experiencing true liberation. Desmond Tutu encouraged his listeners similarly: “To the victims. . .it is important to present God as the God who has power and not only as a God who will bring freedom…. He is not without power though everything seems to prove the contrary…. Our God has heard and seen our afflictions and has come to free us.”

Attune to the spiritual dimension of life, Africans are very conscious of the many powers at work in our world that can limit personal freedom. As the late Kenyan scholar John Mbiti wrote, “Africans see that invisible universe when they look at, hear or feel the visible and tangible world.” These African paintings of the Stations of the Cross, remind us of how they see the figure of Jesus as one who confronted all the individual and structural manifestations that hold us captive. The words to a popular song from the Transvaal area of Southern Africa loudly echo this perspective on Jesus:

Jesus Christ is conqueror,

by his resurrection he overcame death itself,

by his resurrection he overcame all things:

be overcame magic,

be overcame amulets and charms,

he overcame the darkness of possession,

he overcame dread.

When we are with him,

We also conquer.

In my experience, Africans often embody an understanding that their experience of freedom is a sacred responsibility. They see their experience of freedom as something that should be contagious, and offered to others. As the late Hans R. Rookmaaker, a Dutch art historian, said, “Freedom is not just negative, freedom from something: on the contrary, freedom opens up possibilities, freedom is for towards something.” In other words, our own liberation can in turn make us liberators.

I recall once meeting an African engineer who had committed his life to freeing children forced to become bonded laborers – effectively slaves – and to help them find new beginnings. It meant risk; two of his coworkers had been killed. However, he said he believed in Gandhi’s philosophy of the last man – that the bonded laborer is the last man in society, and they were there to liberate the last man.

Desmond Tutu’s call for freedom in South Africa was truly inspiring. In an address he gave in Cape Town he repeatedly prayed for God’s freedom for both blacks and whites. He believed that neither were free – some were bound by having no rights, others bound by hatred and corruption. His continual emphasis on all peoples of South Africa needing liberation, though in different ways, was one of the key elements of his strategic role in South Africa’s transformation.

Martin Luther King Jr., whose entire life was focused on the freedom of his people, is widely loved by Africans. You will see his image in street art throughout the African continent. And they dearly love the closing words in his historic speech made in Washington, D.C. in 1963, understanding them not only to be about individual civil rights, but also of the spiritual freedom offered to all by the Divine Artist.

"With this faith we will be able…to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day….Let freedom ring….And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children – black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants – will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

The spiritual journey is "a long walk to freedom," as Nelson Mandela appropriately titled his autobiography. A long walk it may be – but once on the road, it becomes an irresistible and joyful journey of liberation.

A painting at the African Renaissance Monument in Dakar, Senegal of Martin Luther King, Jr. (L) and a painting of a figure at the "Door of No Return" (R) with Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" statement written above within the white dove (Artist Unknown)