Happy Easter

He Is Risen! May you have a Blessed Easter!

May Their Souls....

...and all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

St. Vincent de Paul Icon

So a month ago, I went with my Dad to a funeral. He wanted to go to his Mother's grave and so we did. On the way home he said he remembered going to a little graveyard in Clifton Park with his mother to see the graves of his two brothers who died as babies.  I asked him did he want to go and he did. It seems at his age (he's 82) he wants to tie things up going places for one more time.

Well we drove for over a hour looking and looking for the cemetery. He kept saying things had changed. I gave up. We left. Later I went online to find the cemetery. It is "St. Vincent Cemetery". I read there had been major desecration to the point that the church had tombstones bulldozed to keep people from finding the dead and it was left to become an overgrown jungle. That to me was unthinkable. I keep saying to myself, what happened to the 7th Corporal Act of Mercy-Bury the Dead? How was this possible?

Sad piles of tombstones litter the grounds

Searching online I found a group on Yahoo, dedicated to the restoration of the graveyard. It had just gone up online a couple weeks before. I joined. I was obsessed with helping out. I'm sure it was my Grandmother prompting me to save her babies.

It's been a whorlwind couple of weeks. I have found myself at the Maryland Archives every week rummaging through and recording the Internment Records for St. Leo's church for those buried at St. Vincent's. Most of those buried there were poor immigrants and mostly children and babies. So sad. There I find the record for my Uncle Angelo who died at 6 weeks. My poor grandmother. My heart sinks and is sadden for her loss.

Does this look like a cemetery?

In a short time, our group raised $1,250 and the church (St. Vincent de Paul) gave us another $1,250. We paid a landscaper to come clear out everything but the large trees. Now you can walk throughout but it doesn't look and feel like a cemetery.

I visited the cemetery yesterday with one of the group leaders. We met someone from the Friends of Clifton Park, a very knowledgeable woman. She gives me hope.

I couldn't help but cry as I walked around the cemetery. Seeing the tombstones in piles and some piled over with soil.  Looking at an old map trying to find my uncles. Praying for all the dead who rested below my feet as I walked. My church (the Roman Catholic Church) may have let the dead down but I won't let them down.....I remember what I was taught by Sister Trenta...that 7th Corporal Work of Mercy. She was a good teacher!  But I wonder, will we ever make it a dignified resting place?

God help us. St. Vincent de Paul Pray for us!
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The icon above was painted by me  for  a friend, Sister Liz Sjoberg of the Daughters of Charity.

Holy Thursday Post

Today begins the Tridium for the Catholic Church-the three holiest days of the year leading up to Easter Sunday. Holy Thursday commemorates the start of it - the remembrance of the final meal Jesus ate with his friends. Good Friday, the day Christ died on the cross to save us from sin. And Holy Saturday when Christ rested in the grave.

Today's Feature will be an ACEO "Lamb of God"in recognition of the start of the tridium. Painted in Watercolors, this ACEO is available on Etsy in my shop:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10182697

Nynet Nynet Nynet.....

...that's what my Russian Icon teacher said today. She didn't like my lines on Mary....not symmetrical, all icons are symmetrical...so I redid parts of it. Then I began laying in the first layer of colors

The paints are pigments mixed with egg tempera. The first layer is very dark. Each subsequent layer is smaller (coming up like a pyramid) and lighter, until the last layer is the whitest.

I know that this doesn't look like much but trust me, that's the way Jesus started out too!

Icons are painted on prepared board. There are many layers of gesso and also a layer of fine linen underneath. We pray before starting any work on an icon. After it is finished they they need to be blessed by a priest on the altar.

So here is what I did today in class. She says do not worry about the drip of color (red) as we will cover it with blue the next time.

Class is every other week. The next one I will be in Italy so I won't go back for a month! :( Be patient all good things take time.

Today's Work --- My Icon Class

I have been taking an icon class every other Monday in Gaithersburg at a Byzentine church. My first icon was of Jesus. It took about 8 months to complete.

Now I'm working on Mary & child Jesus. I am in the beginning stages so as I work on it I will scan it and let you see how it's going. This is the second step. The first is to do the line work. The next step is shadowing the lines.


After Class today I will scan the next step in.........stay tuned folks!