Sister Angelique's Unique Remembrance Card

Every Sister who makes her Solemn Profession in our community also designs her own remembrance card.  Above is our Sister Angelique's card which she not only designed but drew herself.  With help from Sister Francis Maria who is our onsite computer wiz, the drawing was produced and distributed to family and friends who attended her June 19th ceremony.  Sister Angelique also wrote up an explanation of the rich symbolism contained on both front and back of her card.  In this post, you also will benefit from her explanation.  Please read on!

 † Gloria In Excelsis Deo †

Explanation of Remembrance Card for the Solemn Vows of Sister Mary Angelique

    Our remembrance card is an icon of what has become the theme song of my life: the Glory of Christ. 

 

    The image of the Infant Christ affixed to the Cross came to me in the year 2014, the year I made First Profession.  I happened to place a little Infant figure we received around Christmas time on a plain wooden Cross, and was immediately struck by a sense of meaning: The Infant is entirely helpless, whole, innocent, receiving all that He is, purely given without any dividing sense of identity or self-determination.  This to me conveys in a unique way the centrality of Christ, the Only Son of the Father, the Isaac figure, the Agnus Dei, Whose Being and Life are entirely pleasing to the Father and give Him the glory He willed to receive from/for the creation of the world and the outpouring of His Infinite Goodness.  Hence, the text from the Gloria appropriately expresses this concept, with the primacy of Christ being the Source, Means, Fount, and Term of the Glory of the Triune God. 

     

The addition of the Poor Clare at the foot of the Cross came later, when I actually made the drawing during Holy Week of 2020.  It is intended to show how union with the Life and Sufferings of Christ becomes our means of participation in the Glory He renders the Father, so that we each fulfill this purpose of our unique existence through Him.  It is an immense privilege that we, in our weakness and poverty, are thus united to and share meaning with the One Who is above all.

 

The texts for the back of the card were also chosen in 2014.  The words According to the Good Pleasure of His Will, in His Plan for the Fullness of time, to Sum Up all things in Christ best express the significance of the whole.  God’s Will, what Pleases Him, is where His Goodness is displayed most clearly.  Adoring Love of that Most Holy Will makes us seek and desire It above all, for ourselves and for others, and to find all our joy in seeing Him glorified in His Most Perfect Goodness.  His Will is our heritage, where we abide, what we have chosen and desire to possess for all eternity, to the exclusion of all else—and it is this heritage which we share with others, for insofar as I embrace and receive His Most Holy Will in my life, I can become a channel of this grace to the many, that each of them may, in turn, share in, glorify, and enjoy the fruits of God’s Goodness, to the Eternal Delight of the Most Holy Trinity.

       The design on the back of the card was a later addition—it did not come to me until the Sacred Triduum 2021.  The image is pretty self explanatory, and I was so happy to have something which could appropriately accompany the text.  There are three sets of angels: two angels hold the censor of incense, indicating the holocaust of Solemn Consecration, and the “book of the Law” with the Hebrew text “Chesed LaOlam,” meaning “Covenant Love, Forever.”  Two angels adore with arms crossed upon their breasts, which I intentionally drew according the pattern of Our Lady in Fra Angelico’s Annunciation.  Finally the two cherubim upon the Ark of the Covenant adore before the Sacred Propitiatory upon which rises the Crucified Christ—according to the Theology of Saint Bonaventure-contemplating God’s Being and Goodness.  (The Holy Angels are our patrons, and I am named for them.)

 A few added touches are the star, (our mark), which reveals Christ as the Divine Radiance Who draws all things to Himself.  The Alpha and Omega bring out that this Christ occupying the center of the Ark and the Center of Salvation History is the Beginning and End of all things and of all time, as described in the book of Revelation.  The Sacred Heart of Jesus, aflame with His Love, interiorizes the concept of the whole: that is, this reality of the centrality of Christ is not external to us, but transfixes the very center of our being, where Heart meets heart, and where the most Blessed Trinity makes their Home in us.

      Also worthy of mention is the theme of gratitude.  “The Life of Penance is the response of gratitude to the merciful love of God” is my favorite non-Scriptural quotation, from Love’s Reply, by Cajetan Esser.  There was no place for it on our card, but to praise the Glory of God’s Grace is synonymous with gratitude, and we do this through the life of penance in union with the pleasing life of Christ.