New Version of the Large Rosary Flip Book - Now Available!

A new version of the Large Rosary Flip Book is now available at Amazon!

The very first product of the Sacred Art Series was the 8" x 10" version of the Rosary Flip Book, which I designed to help families pray the rosary. Praying the rosary without images to meditate on is difficult; and strangely, there seemed to be no such aid already in existence. But whenever you create something new, you also wonder whether others will actually find it helpful. Maybe there's a reason nobody created this before?

Less than a year after the 8" x 10" version was released, I am happy to report that it has sold out! I am grateful especially to bloggers Leila Lawler (Like Mother Like Daughter Blog) and Kendra Tierney (Catholic All Year) whose favorable reviews and many readers helped generate early publicity for the Rosary Flip Books and the Sacred Art Series.

Over the last year, I've released a small 4" x 5" Rosary Flip Book, a 6" x 6" Luminous Mysteries Rosary Flip Book, and the flagship of the Sacred Art Series, The Holy Gospels of St. Luke and St. John, which is a unique and beautifully illustrated one volume life of Christ. The last year has also given me time to consider comments from buyers and to look for ways to improve the Sacred Art Series and to continue developing new devotional aids to help our families grow in holiness.

So now that the 8" x 10" Rosary Flip Book is sold out, it's time to replace it with a new and improved version, which will simply be called the Large Rosary Flip Book. The Large Rosary Flip Book's dimensions are 7" x 8.75" and thus is slightly smaller than its predecessor. I found that slightly decreasing the size made the stand sturdier and increased the resolution of the image; and despite the slightly reduced size, the images remain plenty large enough to be seen from across the room.

We hope you all like the new and improved Large Rosary Flip Book.

In the below picture, the Large Rosary Flip Book is in the center; to its left is the Luminous Mysteries Rosary Flip Book; to its right, the Small (4" x 5") Rosary Flip Book.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

Fathers for Good interview regarding Sacred Art Series

Fathers for Good, an apostolate of the Knights of Columbus, recently interviewed me regarding the Sacred Art Series. Check it out here!

Also, good news: a new edition of the large Sacred Art Series Rosary Flip Book is coming soon! The new edition will be slightly smaller (7" x 8.75" instead of 8" x 10"). This slightly smaller size improved the image resolution and made the stand sturdier; and the images still are plenty large enough to seen from across the room.

New Liturgical Movement - Two Books for Children

The New Liturgical Movement's Dr. Peter Kwasniewski posted today regarding two books for children. Read about it here. His post also linked to his review from last December regarding the Sacred Art Series' The Holy Gospels of St. Luke and St. John. If you missed the review then, here's the link. And here's an excerpt:

My photos don’t really do it justice, but they will give you a sense of how Bloomfield has made a reader’s Bible that is both maximally useful and unquestionably beautiful. As a teacher of Scripture, I can testify that Bloomfield is right to say that beginning readers are often distracted and discouraged by the unfriendly layout of most Bibles, with their tiny print, dual columns, chapter and verse numbers, footnotes, and other paraphernalia that almost amount to a warning: “This book that you are now holding is an old, technical, difficult, forbidding tome that you can’t just open up and enjoy reading. Think twice before diving in.”  This new book has just the opposite effect: you want to take it up and read it as the story that it is -- the greatest story ever told.

Thanks again to Dr. Kwasniewski for his kind review!

Sacred Art Series Giveaway at Carrots for Michaelmas

The Carrots for Michaelmas Blog has a giveaway and review of the Sacred Art Series' The Holy Gospels of St. Luke and St. John and of the Rosary Flip Book. Here's an excerpt of the review regarding the Gospels:

Immediately, my six-year-old and three-year-old started commenting on how much they loved the pictures and how beautiful they were. We ended up having some great conversations about the passages and the art because the images really sparked their imaginations and they asked tons of questions. So definitely a win. I think it’s perfect for family Scripture reading.

Head on over to Carrots for Michaelmas to enter. There's also a discount code within the blog post, so buy yours today through www.SacredArtSeries.com.

Corpus Christi

Today is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, where in a particular way (and often with an accompanying Eucharistic procession), we honor and reverence the Most Blessed Sacrament of Our Lord's Body and Blood in the Eucharist.

Here is what St. Thomas Aquinas says about the Eucharist (found in today's Office of Readings):

Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation. He shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us for ever, he left his body as food and his blood as drink for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine.

O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value? Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the true God, is set before us as our food. What could be more wonderful than this? No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of all. Yet, in the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in which we renew the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed in his passion.

  It was to impress the vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. As he was on the point of leaving the world to go to the Father, after celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion. It was the fulfilment of ancient figures and the greatest of all his miracles, while for those who were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique and abiding consolation.

St. Thomas Aquinas's beautiful hymn, Adoro te devote, expresses these truths poetically (The English translation that follows is from Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.):

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas; Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit, Quia te contemplans totum deficit.	Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.
Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; Nil hoc verbo veritátis verius.	Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived: How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed; What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do; Truth Himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.
In cruce latebat sola Deitas, At hic latet simul et Humanitas, Ambo tamen credens atque confitens, Peto quod petivit latro pœnitens.	On the cross Thy godhead made no sign to men, Here Thy very manhood steals from human ken: Both are my confession, both are my belief, And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.
Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor: Deum tamen meum te confiteor. Fac me tibi semper magis credere, In te spem habere, te diligere.	I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see, But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he; Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move, Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.
O memoriale mortis Domini! Panis vivus, vitam præstans homini! Præsta meæ menti de te vívere, Et te illi semper dulce sapere.	O thou our reminder of Christ crucified, Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died, Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind, There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.
Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine, Me immundum munda tuo sanguine: Cujus una stilla salvum facere Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.	Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican; Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what Thy bosom ran Blood whereof a single drop has power to win All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.
Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, Oro, fiat illud quod tam sitio: Ut te revelata cernens facie, Visu sim beátus tuæ gloriæ. Amen	Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below, I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so, Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light And be blest for ever with Thy glory's sight. Amen.

Incidentally, I just returned from a trip to France, where I visited St. Thomas Aquinas's tomb at the Church of the Jacobins in Toulouse. Here's a picture.

Happy Pentecost!

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.

Here is the image for the 3rd Glorious Mystery, Pentecost, from the set of images used for the Sacred Art Series Rosary Flip Book. And below is the Sequence for Pentecost. It is meant to be sung immediately preceding the Gospel as Mass on Pentecost.

May 19 - Saint Yves, Patron Saint of Lawyers

Today is the feast of Saint Yves, who is the patron saint of lawyers; although in recent centuries, he has been overshadowed by the great St. Thomas More. It was said of Saint Yves, "Sanctus Ivo erat Brito, Advocatus et non latro, Res mirando populo," which translated means "Saint Yves was a Breton and a lawyer, but not a thief, a remarkable thing in the people's eyes." So they were making lawyer jokes even well before Shakespeare's time.

The Detroit Institute of Arts has a wonderful--and very large--painting of St. Yves by the great artist Peter Paul Rubens.

Saint Yves, patron of lawyers, pray for us!