Today is the beautiful feast of Our Lady of the Pillar. I love this apparition, it is dear to me, because it is very dear to a blessed friend of mine. I love it because Spain's love of Our Lady is traced back to this title and image and of course Spain has had an enormous influence on a great part of the world (South America in particular.)
It is Our Lady's first known apparition except that Our Blessed Mother did not decend from heaven, but in fact bilocated from Jerusalem (where she was praying for St James' missionary success) to Spain where St James was also praying fervently for the conversion of the country, in which had bore no tangible fruit so far.
I talked about this apparition in depth on last year's feast, along with the story on one of the Church's greatest miracles that took place in the 1600's. There was also a follow up story which I blogged about earlier this year. They are both must reads, make them read alouds with your children.
As you can see above, we have done up our little 'daily feastday' altar. Below is the image of Our Lady of Pillar on her jasper pillar (covered in bronze and silver now) only a small portion of the jasper is left exposed, which has been 'won out due to millions of kisses' according to the custodians of the shrine.
Behind this ancient image is a turquoise, marble background with 148 gold stars, 80 of them are bejewelled. Behind our altar I hung material and the children stuck on gold star stickers. I added some scrap voile material around the base to represent her biolocating through the air to St James.
I took the pattern below and printed it onto the gold paper and we cut it out and glued to the back of the cardboard image of Our Lady of the Pilar.
Here is the pattern, I just put it into paintshop and softened it a little. If you click on the image it will go to full size which you can use as a template.
I had cut a piece of cardboard to roll into the pillar, I stuck the gold, patterned paper in the center of the cardboard. I also found some bubble wrap to create that raised, textured look.
Here is the pillar, just waiting for the bubblewrap to go around it.
Lastly, here is Our Lady of the Pilar cake, pop over to Catholic Cuisine to see how this was created. Or if you are pressed for time, buy a swiss roll cake and just pipe on some icing around it!
O Virgin Mother of El Pilar, deigning to appear to Thy beloved disciple, St. James, promising him the victory over paganism, and blessing so abundantly his labours for the spread of the True Catholic Faith, secure for us also, who are the children of that same Faith, the victory over our many foes and the paganism that is laying waste the harvest of souls in our day.
Through the intercession of Thine Apostle, St. James, the "Son of Thunder", may we as clouds flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost, establish everywhere the true devotion to Thy Immaculate Heart that Jesus wills for the conversion of all sinners. Amen.
Interesting to note that:This prayer is said on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays throughout the month of October,and as a triduum before the Feast of Our Lady of El Pillar.
Had to come back and share this little photo, our first miniture roses from our new Mary Garden, at the feet of Our Lady of the Pillar.
It is Our Lady's first known apparition except that Our Blessed Mother did not decend from heaven, but in fact bilocated from Jerusalem (where she was praying for St James' missionary success) to Spain where St James was also praying fervently for the conversion of the country, in which had bore no tangible fruit so far.
I talked about this apparition in depth on last year's feast, along with the story on one of the Church's greatest miracles that took place in the 1600's. There was also a follow up story which I blogged about earlier this year. They are both must reads, make them read alouds with your children.
As you can see above, we have done up our little 'daily feastday' altar. Below is the image of Our Lady of Pillar on her jasper pillar (covered in bronze and silver now) only a small portion of the jasper is left exposed, which has been 'won out due to millions of kisses' according to the custodians of the shrine.
Behind this ancient image is a turquoise, marble background with 148 gold stars, 80 of them are bejewelled. Behind our altar I hung material and the children stuck on gold star stickers. I added some scrap voile material around the base to represent her biolocating through the air to St James.
To create Our Lady of the Pillar, I printed up this image from the Mother of God colouring book, I highly recommend this book because it has all the well known images and stories of Our Lady as well as many of the lesser known titles and images.
Then I wanted to add to the back of image of Our Lady and the Child Jesus the halo that always seen behind the orginal statue. The shrine halo is jewelled and is affixed to the marble directly behind the head of the statue. I had some gold paper in the house so I did a google search on 'round patterns' and found this:
I took the pattern below and printed it onto the gold paper and we cut it out and glued to the back of the cardboard image of Our Lady of the Pilar.
Here is the pattern, I just put it into paintshop and softened it a little. If you click on the image it will go to full size which you can use as a template.Then I thought about the pillar itself. It is patterned, sort of like a paisley patten in some ways, it is also raised and textured.
So I found this pattern and printed it up onto gold paper. If you click on the paisley image it will go to full size for a template.
I had cut a piece of cardboard to roll into the pillar, I stuck the gold, patterned paper in the center of the cardboard. I also found some bubble wrap to create that raised, textured look.
Here is the pillar, just waiting for the bubblewrap to go around it. 
Lastly, here is Our Lady of the Pilar cake, pop over to Catholic Cuisine to see how this was created. Or if you are pressed for time, buy a swiss roll cake and just pipe on some icing around it!
PRAYER
O Virgin Mother of El Pilar, deigning to appear to Thy beloved disciple, St. James, promising him the victory over paganism, and blessing so abundantly his labours for the spread of the True Catholic Faith, secure for us also, who are the children of that same Faith, the victory over our many foes and the paganism that is laying waste the harvest of souls in our day.
Through the intercession of Thine Apostle, St. James, the "Son of Thunder", may we as clouds flying through the air at the least breath of the Holy Ghost, establish everywhere the true devotion to Thy Immaculate Heart that Jesus wills for the conversion of all sinners. Amen.
Dios Te Salve Maria...
Interesting to note that:This prayer is said on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays throughout the month of October,and as a triduum before the Feast of Our Lady of El Pillar.
Had to come back and share this little photo, our first miniture roses from our new Mary Garden, at the feet of Our Lady of the Pillar.
4 comments:
The cake looks yummy!
How beautiful. Thank you for sharing these thoughts.
I just love all of your feast day ideas. I just wish I had time to do more of them. Now that I have a camera again though, I'll be posting our feasts when we do have time. Blessed Tuesday!
Hi. Even though I got across your blog after the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar I must say that I really like the way you did up the altar. You must be a very creative person! I hope you enjoyed the feast in peace and love.
Wishing you all the best,
Sara
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