Laminated pack: contains 25 cards.
Paper pack: contains 50 cards.

Share your faith with this beautiful holy card! The 2.5"x4.25" holy card features a stunning image of Mary Mother of the Church with a quote on the back.

The title Mother of the Church (Mater Ecclesiae) has been used in devotion to Mary by her Christian children since ancient times, but on March 3rd, 2018, Pope Francis decreed that a new feast day, the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, will now be celebrated every year in the Roman calendar on the Monday after Pentecost. In honor of this rare event - the first celebration of a new feast day - Nelson Fine Art & Gifts is proud to release this new composite image featuring Mary in her role as Mother of the Church.

Mary is seen here in a famous and widely-used symbolic pose, extending her mantle outward to cover and protect faithful Christians taking refuge in her motherly care. Below the clouds and under Mary's extended mantle is St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, a symbol of the entire Universal Church. While the historical Mother of Christ was likely very short in physical stature, here Mary is easily the largest figure in the painting, towering over the grown men and the Church she cares for. Depicting the Blessed Mother with significant physical size is an intentional and symbolic gesture used by many artists in their greatest Marian works, including Michelangelo's Pieta. "Our tainted nature's solitary boast," as Mary was described by the poet William Wordsworth, is shown here in the greatness of her maternal role toward Christ and all mankind.

Text:
Under your mantle,
O Mother of the Church,
O Model of all Christians,
your children on earth
seek your intercession
and implore your mercy.
Inspire your sons, the clergy--
all deacons, priests, bishops,
cardinals, patriarchs, and our Holy Father--
to obey your Son and spread His Gospel
with firm conviction, loyalty to truth,
and unfailing love above all things.

Guide your children, the lay faithful,
as they carry the light of Christ
to the ends of the earth: the great halls,
the small places, wherever life is lived.

O Mother of Saints,
O Refuge of Sinners,
lead us home at last to your
Church Triumphant where you
reign as Queen of Angels
and Queen of Heaven.

Amen.

IMPRIMATUR: +Most Reverend Jeffrey M. Monforton,
Bishop of Steubenville

( HC-4088 )