Holy Card Heaven: April 2012

Sunday, April 29, 2012

4th Sunday in Easter 2012: Good Shepherd Sunday

I am the Good Shepherd

Dopter

Saturday, April 28, 2012

LET US DRAW FROM THIS SOURCE DIVINE that always overflows and never runs out.

Friday, April 27, 2012

With everlasting love I have loved you and drawn you to myself.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

She has listened to her good angel, and her good angel has led her to Jesus.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Look at the little birds of heaven
they neither sow nor reap.
Vaurs

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Third Sunday in Easter 2012

This is My Body

BREAD OF HEAVEN
Support my strength to do good.
Bouasse Lebel 3350

Friday, April 20, 2012

Multiplication of the loaves and the fishes.

This morning Fr. Lawrence asked us to sit down as he read the Gospel account of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. We are lower than the angels, he explained. The detail of asking the crowd to sit down on the grass was Christ's way of helping us realize that as we prepare for receiving Him in the Eucharist we need to recognize our lowliness and acknowledge our total dependence upon Him.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Ask the Lord,
always ask,

ask again!

The Lord loves to fill
those who pray!

Bouasse Lebel 1288

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Come to the most sweet medicine.

Monday, April 16, 2012

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. John 14:6
Saintin,Paris

Let us go and drink
at the source of grace.
Dopter, Paris

Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Good Shepherd

"I give my life for my sheep."
Bouasse Lebel

Thursday, April 12, 2012

FLOWERS OF CALVARY

The Cross is the gift

God made for His friends.

Cure d'Ars

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Joy of God's Returning

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Easter Vigil, April 7, 2012

Lord, open to me the holy house that your love has prepared for me. Turgis.
Note: The word bercail means sheepfold, so the meaning is perhaps more intimate, more like home than house; it is referring of course to the church, the Body of Christ. Also there is a small printing error in the card ~ ma should have been m'a. I love the card because it recalls the promises in John 10 that Jesus is both the shepherd and the door. He is the true shepherd to whom the doorkeeper opens the door (John 10:3). He is also the door itself (John 10:9).

Friday, April 6, 2012

Aubérpine

Symbol of the Holy Crown of Thorns

WELCOME TO HOLY CARD HEAVEN

One of our favorite holy cards says simply, "Heaven is the home of loving souls." In a way, an album of holy cards is like a little heaven; the truth that inspired the cards greets us anew with each tender image, and we feel at home. Little by little I hope to bring together a collection of this gentle faith art for the delight and comfort of any loving soul who happens by.

Ethereal messengers of God's Love and Light, the small engravings that gather here fly in day by day. Little paper shrines that shelter the sacred, they are gathered here in the hope of sharing their beauty and meaning with another generation. To those who love them, they have much to give; like time spent in a restful garden, they are a feast for the eyes and a feast for the soul.

This gentle art can be used today to enter safely into the inner landscape allowing its imagery to guide the soul. Visual poetry employing symbol and metaphor as carriers of meaning, the path to which they invite us is always one in which God's own Love leads the way.

You can click on an image to enlarge it and see the artist's loving attention to detail. It is especially meaningful to be able to see the faces at a higher resolution. In many of the images, the sweetness of expression is at once joyful and serious, and, for a brief moment, we seem to draw close to the Presence of pure goodness, pure happiness.

The blessing I ask for any who come this way is again taken from a favorite holy card: "May a tender Friendship surround you always, and may all your days be a smile of heaven."
Fr. François Fénelon

Our favorite holy card illustrates the hope we hold as Christians that the door to heaven will be opened to the soul refined by love. It is the refinement of the soul by divine love that the art of the holy cards helps us to contemplate. The card has an engaving of the dove in flight into the mystery of Trinitarian love. The Uncreated Light overlaid by the symbol for the Holy Trinity is at the heart of the card. The writings of the early fathers, as well as those of the the Carmelite saints and Christian mystics throughout the ages - both in the Church in the east and the west - help us to approach the mystery of Trinitarian love not only as the theological underpinning of Christian belief but also as the action of the Spirit of Love in and through which we live and move and have our being.

About the Cards in this Collection

While some are from Italy, Germany, the Netherlands or other parts of Europe, Paris was perhaps the main place of publication. Dates are seldom available but most are from the mid 1800's to the close of that century. The depiction of persons is Eurocentric, but the symbols in the early holy cards are universal and inclusive: the image of the Heart as symbol for the incarnation of divine love, the image of the small bird as a symbol for the human soul eager but fragile and in constant need of God's love and care, the Living Water, the garden enclosed, the door that opens into Light... through visual poetry, the early holy cards continue to speak a language that reaches across the barriers of time and space and can be received by everyone.

Scheduling of the Cards and the Small Albums

Holy Card Heaven enters its seventh year on the first Sunday in Advent, 2015. Day by day the cards will continue to be moved into the new church year depending for their placement on the dates of the movable feasts and seasons. This way no cards need get lost in the distant past, new cards can be added, and we can appreciate the collection a little differently with each passing year.
Small Albums, each with a different topic, will change from month to month and will be linked in the top right column.