Art Novena for Our Lady of Lourdes Day Seven

Della Carita Capolavoro - Masterpiece of Love

Della Carita Capolavoro

We are blessed with three mothers in the course of life; our biological mother, mother nature, and Mary, our spiritual mother. 

Mother is a metaphor in the case of nature and of Mary. 

They are mothers in the sense that they represent a structure that acts in a motherly way; forming, transforming, protecting, instructing, directing and redirecting, warning and initiating. 

This is an energy in the universe called mother nature and an energy in the soul personified as Mary. 

The life-giving powers in nature were sacred in ancient times. 

This referred not only to the physical but to the inner Source that is always alive and and one and the same in the world and the pscyhce. 

Nature has laws that exert an energy that compels and draws but also accompanies us through the phases of life.

Loved Beyond Measure

Aldobrandesca, a medieval mystic of Siena, when close to death had a vision of Mary with this message : 'Daughters, be obedient to the law of the Mother'.

Spanish Madonna

Mechtild of Magdeburg saw Mary as the spiritual mother of all humankind : 'I suckled the prophets and sages before God was born'.

Our Lady of Lourdes

Juliana of Norwich saw visions of the motherhood of God and also said 'Our Lady is our mother in whom we are all enclosed ..... and our saviour is our mother in whom we are endlessly born ..... To motherhood belong nature, love, wisdom and knowledge, and this is God'

Heart of Power

Allah has chosen you, Mary. He has made you pure above all women - The Koran

Shrine of lost children

You will open the hearing of the wayfarer's heart (fu'aadi min saalikin) because the subtle knowledge of Her is Her proof. Grant us union with Her always and cause us to withdraw from every sensory existence.- Songs of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib

Inciting love in every heart, you bring forth generation after generation - Prayer to Venus, Mother of Rome, by Lucretius (d 55B.C.)

House of Gold

The Tao is the great mother, empty and yet overflowing, bringing forth the infinite universe. And it is forever inside you - Tao Te Ching

Mary held all these things within her, pondering them in her heart - Luke 2:19

blessings

Art Novena for Our Lady of Lourdes Day Six

Window and chapel of Mary in Notre Dame de Paris

Sweet Lady of the Snows,

when we are most convinced

that the light is in danger

of disappearing from this world

Lit votives in front of statue of Notre Dame de Paris
in Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris taken on the Nativity
of Mary

 You step through the darkness,

barefoot, enraptured,

and carry the Sun of Justice into our midst.

The highest angelic orders

bear witness to the miracle ripening

in your womb.

Within the mysterious heart of deep winter,

the seed of everlasting life is preparing

Full moon at Notre Dame de Paris on eve of Nativity Feast
of Mary 2014

to break through the frozen mantle 

that covers our hearts,

radiating healing and hope

where we had witnessed only desolation.

Holy Mary,

we are ready to be amazed.

      -  Mirabai Starr

Full moon at Notre Dame de Paris on eve of Mary's Nativity Feast
7 September 2014

blessings

Art Novena for Our Lady of Lourdes - Day Five

My kitchen shrine with fresh bay leaf and
rosemary for protection, from my garden

Morning

Mary Oliver

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.

Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.

The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.

The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture.

Then laps the bowl clean.

Then wants to go out into the world

where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the lawn,

then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.

I watch her a little while, thinking:

what more could I do with wild words?

I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.

I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

blessings

Art Novena for Our Lady of Lourdes - Day Four

You cannot hide her!

A selection of street shrines in Rome -

I took all the photographs recently in September.

Around every corner and every turn, in alley ways

and under balconies, we discovered shrines,

many tended with growing plants and lit candles!!

blessings

Art Novena for Our Lady of Lourdes Day 1

Statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in the centre
of the processional area in front of the Rosary Basilica
at Lourdes, France.

Today I am starting my annual
Art Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes.
Nine days of Beauty, Inspiration and Art
dedicated to the manifestation of the Blessed Mary
Our Lady of Lourdes at the Grotto of Massabielle.

If you are so called, I invite you to join in with me
in your own ritual, art making, meditation, prayer
or celebration for these nine days culminating
on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes.


A novena is an old tradition of nine sacred days
and nine intentions, carried by one's chosen action
out into the vibration of manifestation.

My first dedicated intention is that of the Observant.,
and by inclusion the Servant. 
I would like to revisualize and re-interpret for myself the word servant and especially
the holy servant and its images of reluctant and painful sacrifice.

St Bernadette from the Sacred Mysteries of Mary Tarot Deck
www.hergracesacredart.com

I start off with the story of Our Lady of Lourdes
and her holy servant, Bernadette.
We are told that Bernadette grew up poor

and almost destitute.  Along with her family
she lived in squalor and in the extreme weather
conditions of Lourdes which is on the slopes of the Alps.
She had to scavenge for

fire wood and food on the rubbish heap

of the village.  She also took care of the few

sheep that the family owned.

To mind comes the image of the serving girl

in fairy tales.  One thinks of Cinderella who had

to clean and keep house for her step mother and

step sisters.  Until her life is transformed

by the visitation of the fairy godmother

and she eventually is recognized for who she is.

Soulcollage card :  The Miracle

After the Lady in shimmering white had appeared

to the young Bernadette, her life had changed forever.

But she was persecuted and ridiculed for her visions
and messages.  She was put into jail and put through rigorous
interrogation.  Despite all of these hardships she continued

to turn up for her meetings with the Lady,
and she continued to deliver her messages.

She followed her instructions and dug a hole

where water had never sprung before.

Bernadette surrendered her fear and became

a servant of her divine purpose and calling.

She could not have known then what an impact

she and the messages that she delivered, would have on the world.

The appearance of the Lady in White at Lourdes

and the miracles that she brought to those whom

were touched by her appearance, has the power to

transform our world.  Belief systems and science

are refuted.  The impossible now becomes possible.

The world changes from a dark place abandoned

by the Divine, to a living spring with healing waters

available for all the partake from.

In the same way we see Mary herself take up the role

as holy servant.

I am Thy Handmaiden
Two of Vessels
Sacred Mysteries of Mary Tarot deck

I am Thy Handmaiden

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; 

be it unto me according to thy word.

The fiat of Mary is Mary's consent to the divine plan.
Her acceptance and consent
has created a new world of grace.

My first novena to Our Lady of Lourdes :

I observe the challenge to recognize the call to serve the Divine within my own heart and
to dig the dry soil,
releasing the Spring of Love and Grace.

Blessings

Hettienne

Prayers are always answered

Lilies of prayers floating from her lips to the heavens

The Grotto of Massabielle in a miniature diorama

A sacred shrine in a diorama depicting the

amazing experience of being in the powerful

and healing energies of the sacred spring

at the Grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes, France.

All the elements of the procession and devotion

to the Holy Woman, Our Lady of Lourdes,

whom appeared to Bernadette Soubirous

on many occasions, are used in this beautiful shrine.

I included one of the candles that I used during

my last pilgrimage to Lourdes during the candle lit procession

The background of the shrine is the front of the candle shield

The shrine has a replica of the image of the holy card

in tiny miniatures including Bernadette and her sheep

The shrine is dripping with Our Lady of Lourdes medals

brought back after having been dipped into the sacred

waters of the spring.

A very unusual piece of rosary with tiny images

of Our Lady and the Rose of Lourdes on each bead,

hangs down the one side.

On the back of the shrine is the Hail Mary

from the candle shield

I took this image from the internet at www.biblesetnombres.free.fr

It was taken from the top of the Basilica and it gives you an idea

of what the candle lit procession looks like.

This shrine forms part of my Our Lady of Lourdes Series

Catalogue number 385

The Grotto of Massabielle, Lourdes

Please read about my Art Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes

and my annual pilgrimage to sacred places

And it is flying to the USA with

a bottle of water from the sacred spring

of Massabielle

My prayers are with the world, with the cities of Paris and Beirut,

with each one of us and may we find the compassion to forgive

these painful acts of violence and destruction and take the

first step towards ending the vicious cycle of hate and retaliation.

Love is the strongest and most powerful force in the world.

May Love Prevail

blessings

Hettienne