Holy Card: Portrait Of Jesus

This has a Copyright date of 1934. Jesus in portrait, beautiful artwork, a picture I haven't seen. Unfortunately, some stains on it from handling. Still, very nice.

Holy Card: Therese of Lisieux

This beautiful one is my favorite saint of all time, St. Therese, the Little Flower. Card from Italy, classic cross and roses pose.

Someone had this one on a bulletin board, because there's two pin holes in it, top and bottom. Reprinted from Leaves magazine of Dearborn, Michigan.

The back has a prayer:

St. Therese, the Little Flower, please pick me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me with a message of love. Ask God to grant me the favor I thee implore and tell Him I will love Him each day more and more.

(The above prayer, plus 5 Our Father's, 5 Hail Mary's, 5 Glory Be's, must be said on 5 successive days, before 11 A.M. On the 5th day, the 5th set of prayers having been completed, offer one more set -- 5 Our Father's, 5 Hail Mary's, 5 Glory Be's.)

Therese of Lisieux, sometimes called Theresa with an A. The Little Flower, "No matter where, her prayer is guiding me," from an old song.

Holy Card: Ecce Ancilla Domini

Mary's praying and a dove is above her head, "Ecce ancilla Domini," Behold the handmaid of the Lord.

Holy Card: Crucified Christ

A black and white close up of the crucified Christ, thorns on His head. Maybe the most stunning artwork I've ever seen of this scene.

His mouth is open but relaxed, his eyes are closed, there's a beatific expression on his face, the body is soft fuzzed, melts into black.

Behind Christ you can see just part of the cross, and there's a halo that arcs way out. If you continued the circle it'd cross His neck.

The only marking is D-57.

Seven Days In An Astonished Trance

Here's something I read in the Bible that's extremely interesting: The prophet Ezekiel had the whole vision of God's glory, then in 3:15 it says, "I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Abib near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days - overwhelmed" (NIV). The last part of the verse in the KJV is this, "I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days."

I wonder what it'd be like to be in what amounts to an astonished trance for seven days. You've seen something no one else has seen. You get to a place and others are there and you simply sit there for a whole week in a daze. 1) It'd probably be quite nice, except, 2) These days they'd call the ambulance and you'd wake up in the hospital with an IV drip. That wouldn't be so nice.

This is a great little passage, I'm thinking meant to drive home the intensity of his experience and call. It's like a "no self" experience, which I don't know much about, but I have a book somewhere with that title.

There's another passage in the Bible I can think of sort of like this but not quite. It's where the friends of Job appear in the story, Job 2:13, "So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great" (KJV). I really don't think I could sit on the ground seven days and seven nights. It might be like one of those car contests where they let you take your hands off it five minutes every hour for bathroom breaks. But I doubt it. Again, it's speaking of the intensity of the situation, how bad it is in that case.

A few years ago I gave standing orders that if it ever seemed like I was dead not to take me to the hospital. Ha ha, but you can't honestly expect people to actually follow that. You would either be hooked to the IV or embalmed.