Sts Anne and Joachim with Our Lady

I found this beautiful image of St Anne teaching the Child Mary with St Joachim, one worth sharing on St Anne's Tuesday!

Click on the image to see it in all it's glory, full size.

Praying for a beautiful friend

I would love to invite anyone who would like to join with me, offering two novenas for a beautiful friend Melinda, a Catholic mother of six young children living in Australia, who has advanced renal cancer and secondaries.

Melinda

In Australia is the 14th of April and we are starting the first of the two novenas today. The second novena which follows directly on from the the first, will finish on the 1st of May, Divine Mercy Sunday and the beatification day of Pope John Paul II.

We pray with great hope!

Firstly, inspired by this wonderful miracle that was used for the beatification of Pope John XXIII.

Secondly, because I read in the latest Fidelity magazine (an Australian publication) and also in the worldwide, Love One Another magazine, of a incredible miracle that took place through the intercession of Juan Diego, The miracle was around the time of Juan Diego’s beatification and was the miracle used for his canonization.

A man, Jose Silva, plunged over 30 feet or 10 metres to the ground, landing directly on his head on concrete, he struck the concrete with an estimated force of two tons. His mother who witnessed this cried out to Juan Diego to interceed for her son. She continued to pray fervently over the next 10 days. This happened a couple of days before the beatification of Juan, the fact that he even survived the fall was a miracle, testified by the doctors. Then he turned a complete corner in healing on the beatification day of Juan Diego ~ he walked out of hospital 10 days after the accident and all traces of damage and injury to his head and brain had vanished, all verified by the doctors.

So we pray for Melinda for complete healing, especially around this joyful time of Pope John Paul II’s beatification.

Please pass this novena on to as many people you can think of, who would like to join and many thanks in advance!

NOVENA PRAYER

We believe in God’s everlasting love for all and through faith and great confidence in that love, our petitions will be granted. Therefore in the desire to promote God’s greater honour and glory we pray through the intercession of Pope John Paul II for the healing of Melinda.

O Blessed Trinity, we thank Thee for having graced the Church with Pope John Paul II, and for allowing the tenderness of your fatherly care, the glory of the Cross of Christ and the splendor of the Holy Spirit to shine through him. Trusting fully in your infinite mercy and in the maternal intercession of Mary he has given us a living image of Jesus the good shepherd and has shown us that holiness is the necessary measure of ordinary Christian life and is the way of achieving eternal communion with you. Grant us by his intercession and according to your will, the graces we implore, the healing of Melinda, hoping that he will soon be numbered among your saints. Amen

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be to the Father.

UPDATE: I am very sad to add here that Melinda passed away, day eight of the first novena, on the morning of Holy Thursday, the beginning of the Triduum. We continue to offer the novenas for Melinda, for her soul and for her family, her six children who are now without their earthly mother. Many thanks to all those continuing to join in prayer for Melinda.

"Sweet Chains" that Shine in the Sun

I mentioned earlier this week, about my new beading endeavour here. Since then I've continued to experiment and working on developing the skill of wire wrapping.

It has been an enjoyable week to say the least, a real 'gaudete' week in lent for sure. ~ The joy of beading for God's glory. ~ Ruth from Loreto Rosaries and I were only talking about this recently.

Above is a chain rosary I have named, 'Tilma full of Roses' ~ the most beautiful Castilian Roses ever...when I look at these gemstones together, I imagine them lying in folds of Juan Diego's tilma, freshly arranged by the hands of the Blessed Mother...

The crucifix is a Spanish 'Caravaca' cross that has a special story connected to it..it has Our Lord on the cross on one side, and as you can see here, Our Lady on the other.. The rosary centre is Our Lady of Guadalupe, standing in front of a Truine filigree aura, representing the Blessed Trinity.

This rosary is big and monastic in appearance..maybe it is too big and I need to use smaller links, but as you finger through the Aves it feels lovely, but it certainly is big...a lovely, large lap rosary.

The beads are an Australian gemstone ~ Mookaite. It's warm, it's vivid. The Pater beads are carved roses.

I'm discovering that I love the earthy, masculine gemstones the best, they have this ancient feel to them, like our Faith. Timeless ~yet ever new.

This is a tenner dedicated to Sancta Joseph the universal patron of the Church...he features on the left hand side of the Crucifix and the medal of course The crucifix is the Holy Family with the Holy Spirit. There is a little double sided medal after the Pater bead, Our Lord's profile one side, Our Lady's profile on the other..

Sancta Joseph, ora pro nobis!

This is an Assumption medal..angels surround Our Lady assuming into heaven..cherubs surround the crucifix as well.

The brown Agate Aves represent earth..the glints of aqua crystals either side of the Aves and the Pater bead, represent Our Lady rising to Heaven..the Pater bead is a very cloudy gemstone, just like the sky...

This tenner is called "Bread of Heaven" ~ I made it for my mum 3 years ago when I first started beading. What is new, is that I have taken it off it's wire and converted it to chains. I've also added near the Pater bead, an exquisite little medal called, "Jesus, are you there?"...with a little child knocking at the door of the tabernacle.

“Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain linking us to God” ....

~ Pope John Paul II in his apostolic letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae.

Wordless Wednesday

St Anne Sidebar Archives...at last!

I have been promising for a long time to place my Tuesdays with St Anne postings, link by link in the sidebar of Under Her Starry Mantle. It was always going to be a big job, hence my terrible delay but finally I have done it.

It will make a hugh difference for anyone who would like to go back and read any of the past information I have shared here. I have had a few different 'series' on the life of St Anne and used different sources from time to time. I have also come across things out of the blue. So I've tried to have some sort of structure in my sidebar to reflect all of that.

I felt the best way to display the information was to put them under subheadings with an image like the ones you can see below:

The day I found information about the birthplace and home of St Anne, I was so awestruck. Discovering where it was and it's symbolic significance was incredible. To top it off, someone informed me later that day the the daily readings at Mass for that day was a scene from that spot! There are three postings to look at, they will be in the lefthand sidebar under the icon you see above.

St Anne's Chaplet is one of the best of all chaplets. It's simple, not too long and you don't need to read long prayers. Did I mention it was powerful? I can say from personal experience, it is!

I have a few postings on St Anne's chaplet ~ how to recite it, it's efficacy. The second posting in the list, is the story of how we saw the Holy Father at WYD, totally against the odds, and how I believe it is through the recitation of St Anne's Chaplet.

I have added to the link list two postings of my St Anne Chaplet creations ~ one to my own St Anne chaplet and another to the seven symbolic ones I made one year to giveaway for her feast..you may enjoy to read what inspired each one.

Under this icon heading, I have linked the stories on the life of St Anne that I have shared from a big out-of-print book on St Anne called, St Anne: Grandmother of Our Saviour, written by Frances Parkinson Keyes. It was an enjoyable, informative series.

I only have two links at this stage, under this icon. One is to a meal with much symbolic meaning to it, including a cake I made that was also shared at Catholic Cuisine. The second posting is a craft we made to honour St Anne through her litany titles.

This icon is the first one in the lefthand sidebar, directly under my link to the Transapline Redemptorists on Papastronsay in Scotland. The reason for that is, I shared probably the best source of information on the life of St Anne and the history of her devotion from a beautiful Catholic newspaper/magazine, given to me from my sister-in-law last year. I didn't know who published it, sharing only the name of the paper as the source of my information. Then I was very blessed to discover the blog Papastronsay and subsequently realised that it was their publication!

So I have gone back through all of those postings in the series (nine of them) and given a more accurate HT to this wonderful order and it's publication. You will love the stories from this series. If this is a calibre of the articles from the magazine Catholic, then it's definitely worth subscribing to.

Under this icon are all the miscellaneous postings I've shared over the years...there are some really lovely things in this section, St Anne poems, images, stationery, stories and much more.

I launched Tuesdays with St Anne with this little Tan book, Good St Anne. It's a wonderful little book and sharing it was a joy, some of the best St Anne postings are in this list, including my very first posting.

I have shared three different Novenas to St Anne during the last few years, they are novenas that have a special prayer for each day. They are all beautiful. My favourite is "Novena 1" which I recite every day.

This little book, "Pilgrim's Handbook of St Anne deBeaupre" is my latest discovery. It was published in 1883 and has many new prayers and devotions I have never seen before. I will be sharing from this book in the weeks and months to come. Look especially to the beginning of July this year (month of St Anne's feast day) as I will have something to share everyday from this book. So far under this icon, I have the Way of the Cross with St Anne, perfect for Lent.

A Tenner in chain..a new endeavour

Last night, out of the absolute blue (not planned, so very me when it comes to beading) I made this tenner. Even when I picked out the medal, crucifix and beads, I STILL didn't know I was going to make it in chains rather than the normal soft flex wire. So the chain idea came to me and within 5mins I was away.

It came together without problems, just a little slower as I so very carefully, wrapped the wire to the chain. The movement in the tenner amazed me, it felt fantastic and because of that movement sat in the hand as easily as my wire tenners which I use smaller Ave beads (8mm) ~ this tenner has 10mm Aves.

I love this tenner, it is earthy and magestic in appearance, thanks to the Fossilized gemstone beads and solid, unpolished bronze...

The Eucharistic Adoration medal is incredible, I have not seen one so spectacular than this, other than the Our Lady of Mt Carmel scarf medal I have used in the past. I chose a Fleur de Lis cut-out crucifix matches beautifully with the cut-out work in the Eucharistic medal.

I've done something very different ...I've used 10mm Aves and the spaces are far bigger than anything I've ever created..and it feels perfect in the hand, fingering from one Ave to another..

Now to test it's durability ~ I believe it to be VERY durable...the weeks and months ahead with daily use, will tell. I'm very happy.

I name this tenner ~ Heaven on Earth.