Holy Card Heaven: January 2013

Mater Admirabiles

Ora pro nobis.

Bensiger

My Beloved is Mine and I am His

Thomas Aquinas Feast Day, January 28

The Brook lost in the River
My Lord and my God
~St. Thomas [the Apostle]

Eucharistic symbol also possibly alludes to the commentary by St. Thomas Aquinas on Sirach 14:40-42 See his commentary on ENLARGING THE HEART

From small album~
Holy Card Retreat

Holy Virgin

Mary Most Holy

Liberatrice

St. Francis de Sales: Memorial, January 24

St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of Writers
Small album ~ Doctors of the Church

"I would rather account to God for too great gentleness than for too great severity. God the Father is the Father of mercy; God the Son is a Lamb; God the Holy Spirit is a Dove..."
~St. Francis de Sales

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength."
~St. Francis de Sales

Mother of God

and the Christ Child

untitled engraving

Dopter

The Child Jesus

Fonteney et Peltier

DIVINE BIRD KEEPER The birdsnatcher has taken advantage of your inexperience, but I am the Poor Dove and I will rescue you.
Bouasse-Lebel 1177

As a mother

caresses her child,

so I comfort you.

Bouasse Lebel 782B

THE GOOD SHEPHERD
LEADS HIS FLOCK
AND CARRIES THE LAMB
TOO WEAK TO WALK.

Infant of Prague celebrated 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Infant of Prague celebrated 2nd Sunday after Epiphany

Infant of Prague Album

Sweet Unity in the Cross of Jesus

Octave of Christian Unity: January 18 - 25

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

"If I can unite in myself the thought and devotion of Eastern and Western Christendom, the Greek and the Latin Fathers, the Russian and the Spanish mystics, I can prepare in myself the reunion of divided Christians. From that secret and unspoken unity in myself can eventually come a visible and manifest unity of all Christians. If we want to bring together what is divided, we cannot do so by imposing one division upon the other. If we do this, the union is not Christian. It is political and doomed to further conflict. We must contain all the divided worlds in ourselves and transcend them in Christ."~ Fr. Thomas Merton 1915-1968

Small Album ~ Let Christian's Be United

FAITHFUL FRIEND
Bouasse Lebel

Mary Most Admirable

Pray for us.

INCOMPARABLE FRIEND
I will draw all to myself by my divine simplicity.
Bouasse Lebel 400

COME TO ME ALL.

The Most Beautiful Gift of Mary

Little Jesus,
my sweet Lamb,

would that my heart
might be your cradle.

I hold Him
and will not let Him go
because I chose Him

for all my Good.

Lataille

Baptism of the Lord: : Solemnity, January 13 (USA)

Although tomorrow will see the beginning of Ordinary Time, and
Christmas trees came down after Epiphany, the close of the Christmas season is actually not until Candlemas ( Feast of the Presentation of the Lord ) on February 2nd.
I find this a lovely excuse to continue posting images of the Christ Child throughout January.

Baptism of the Lord

"He came to save all through himself – all, I say, who through him are reborn in God; infants, and children, and youths, and old men. Therefore he passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, sanctifying infants; a child for children, sanctifying those who are of that age . . . . so that he might be the perfect teacher in all things, perfect not only in respect to the setting forth of truth, perfect also in respect to relative age." ~Tertullian (Against Heresies A.D. 189)

Baptism of the Lord

THE SOURCE

Full of grace and gentleness,
the child Jesus has given
drink to his small precursor.
In Heaven, happy conqueror,
I will get drunk on glory
at the source of his Heart.

By you O Mother and Virgin, heaven trembles with elation and the angels and the archangels rejoice. ~St Cyrille
Benziger,
Einsiedeln, Switzerland

See how He loved her.

Bouasse Lebel, edit Imp.
679

All good things are come to us with Him:
Joy
Peace
Sweetness
Fervor
Innocence

Be they small or large, all must be allowed to learn of Jesus
in his crèche.
Bouasse Lebel 1334

Happy the soul who loves me.
Bouasse Lebel 999

Mary Mother of God, pray for us.
Langume

St. Peter Thomas, Patriarch of Constantinople: Memorial, Jan. 8

Saint Peter-Thomas, Patriarch of Constantinople
Blessed are the lives of those who are consumed in the service of Holy Church!
~ St. Teresa of Jesus

St. Peter Thomas was inspired by an intense desire to promote peace and Christian unity. Quoting from the web site below, "His life may be summarized in three words: Mary, Union of the Greeks, and Jerusalem."
St. Peter Thomas

I love the artist's touch of placing over the Carmelite heart the monogram of Mary.

It is good on His Heart!

Let us live holy lives that we may rest there one day.

Bouasse Lebel 936

Epiphany

THE MITE OF THE POOR. There is no need of rich presents to please Jesus; a pure heart will satisfy Him.
Bouasse Lebel 1087

O INFANT,
SON OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER, HAVE MERCY ON US

First Friday

The Perfect Gifts of the Heart of Jesus

Faith that illumines,

Hope that consoles,

Love that vivifies.

Bouasse Lebel 3005

Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, January 3

He is come who his mother calls Jesus, that name so sweet and yet so powerful. ~ Fr. Faber
Bouasse Lebel

from~ Small Album:
The Holy Name of Jesus

HOLY MOTHER
OF GOD
O Virgin who the King of Glory deigned to choose for His palace,
Ark [of the New Covenant], Altar of Propitiation where Heaven gave us Peace. Mon. Bouasse Lebel

Mary Mother of God: Solemnity, January 1

Mother of the Savior
Dopter

from ~ Small album:

Mary Mother of God

JANUARY: Devotion, The Holy Name

The month of January is traditionally dedicated to Holy Name of Jesus and also to the childhood of Jesus.
Feasts in January:
1. Mary, Mother of God: (S) Jan. 1 (Vigil, Dec. 31)
3. Holy Name of Jesus: Feast Jan. 3
8. Epiphany Sunday: (S) Jan. 6, 2013 (USA)
20. Infant of Prague: 2nd Sunday after Epiphany
24. St. Francis de Sales: (M) Jan 24 (formerly Jan. 29)

Carmelite Feast Days
7. St. Peter-Thomas: Carmelite (M), January 8

Small Albums ~ January

Small albums for Christmas Season (until Baptism of the Lord)

Mother of the Creator
The One who created me
has rested in my tabernacle. ~ Eccl. 24

Klauber engraving

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

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.

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.

Scheduling of the Cards and the Small Albums

Holy Card Heaven enters its fourth year on the first Sunday in Advent, December 2, 2012. 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.

The Perfect Gifts of the Heart of Jesus

Followers