Why Holy Cards? Why Symbols?

I’m relaunching my blog with a thematic approach. Since my next book involves the symbolism in old Catholic holy cards I’ll begin with that theme.

I have been enamored with holy cards since I was a student at Saint Peter in Chains Grade School and Sister Perpetua gave me Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane for helping a classmate clean up his dropped tray in the cafeteria. She gave my friend Saint Teresa of the Little Flower when she won the spelling bee. And everybody got The Assumption on the last day of school in June, probably to remind us that the feast day, on August 15, was a holy day of obligation and we better not forget to get ourselves to Mass.

Those little works of art—smaller than a playing card—delighted me. I loved the vivid colors. The scenes of palaces and countryside. The gold ink that outlined the holy people and shimmered when the card was held at just the right angle. I was in awe of angels in armor and saints with halos who risked their lives for their faith. I empathized with both Martha and Mary, and identified with the women of Jerusalem who wept as Jesus carried His cross. I still remember the color of red in Jesus’ cloak in my first holy card. The angel in the beautiful night sky that seemed to appear right before my eyes. The sadness on Jesus’ face. The holy cards taught me, inspired me, and focused my attention on God. But I didn’t understand why until much later.

Holy cards have been in circulation since the 1400s (while Christopher Columbus was growing up), first produced in Europe as woodcut images. Their popularity and distribution increased in the late 1700s (as the American Revolution was raging) with the invention of the lithograph which allowed mass production of color images at little cost. Like the stained-glass windows in churches of that time, holy cards were made to teach the Bible to the commoners who could neither read nor write.

In order to pack a lot of information into the tiny space, symbols were used to express ideas that would take a lot of text (or a lot of talking) to explain. Halos meant holy people. Triangles meant Trinity. Purple meant royalty. Ivy meant eternity. From this simple picture of Mary we are reminded that: Mary is royalty (purple dress), just as the mothers of the Kings of Israel were considered Queens, that she is all about truth (blue cloak), that she is pure (white roses).

Even with the guidelines, different countries added their own individual touches to the art such as rounded corners or gold edges. Over time, different symbols for the same message became common (as any internet search will show you). After World War II and Vatican II, literacy rates and camera technology increased making symbolic artwork less necessary. Now holy cards are mostly used as memorial cards for loved ones or are photographs of more modern saints with prayers printed on the back.

Still, symbolism in holy cards—objects, shapes, animals, colors, numbers—is a fun way to review your faith, or learn a few facts you didn’t know. And that’s what we’ll talk about on Thursday. Hope you stop by.