WOYWW: Jesus is Risen!

A blessed and joyful Easter season to all of you!  It always amazes me that the week goes by so quickly and it's time for another edition of What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday.  My main desk is still the same as last week and so I'm showing you my prayer desk which is also quite busy.  

Here is an illustration in my prayer journal, reminding me to "Go and carry the news."  I guess that's why I started out this blog in the first place!  May you experience the joy, hope and power of Jesus' victory each and every day!

WOYWW: Sew Busy

There's something new going on in my desk for What's on your Workdesk Wednesday! 

I'm doing some sewing. Nothing exciting, I just finished the seams in one of the blouses I bought in India.  I plan to wear it during the Easter Vigil Mass. Now that the sewing machine is out, I may decide to do the rest of the blouses as well.  I wish I had a serger or lived near Annie who offered to lend me hers!

By next Wednesday, we would have celebrated Easter, so I wish for you a meaningful and joyful Easter.  It is a such a special day for us, celebrating Jesus rising from the dead.  And that's why I just had to unearth my sewing machine and get my special outfit ready for Easter ;-)

WOYWW: Happy Easter!

Happy Easter season!  I did some tidying up and so there is a clear space on my desk.  I even fixed the shelves on top, just in time for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday.

Here is a mixed media piece I did recently...

and some typography practice on a little mini pad I sometimes bring along.

For Word Art Wednesday, my prayer journal illustration for Easter proclaims, "He is risen!"

The Easter message of Pope Francis echoes this same joyful truth...

"The Church throughout the world echoes the angel’s message to the women: “Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised… Come, see the place where he lay” ( Mt 28:5-6).

This is the culmination of the Gospel, it is the Good News par excellence: Jesus, who was crucified, is risen! This event is the basis of our faith and our hope. If Christ were not raised, Christianity would lose its very meaning; the whole mission of the Church would lose its impulse, for this is the point from which it first set out and continues to set out ever anew. The message which Christians bring to the world is this: Jesus, Love incarnate, died on the cross for our sins, but God the Father raised him and made him the Lord of life and death. In Jesus, love has triumphed over hatred, mercy over sinfulness, goodness over evil, truth over falsehood, life over death.

That is why we tell everyone: “Come and see!” In every human situation, marked by frailty, sin and death, the Good News is no mere matter of words, but a testimony to unconditional and faithful love: it is about leaving ourselves behind and encountering others, being close to those crushed by life’s troubles, sharing with the needy, standing at the side of the sick, elderly and the outcast… “Come and see!”: Love is more powerful, love gives life, love makes hope blossom in the wilderness.

With this joyful certainty in our hearts, today we turn to you, risen Lord!

Help us to seek you and to find you, to realize that we have a Father and are not orphans; that we can love and adore you."

A blessed and joyful Easter!

WOYWW: Easter Gifts

I've been busy!  My brother-in-law and his wife celebrated their 25th Wedding Anniversary last Sunday and my gift was their wedding giveaways.  This was my desk last Saturday, filled with finished bookmarks...

each with a little Holy Family charm (they have one son, just like in the charm).

And today for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday, I am making a similar giveaway for a 75th birthday...

another gift to a precious friend.  I have only finished a few...

with lots more to go!

And in this Easter season, I thank God for His greatest gift to me, Jesus Christ, and what He has prepared for me through His death and resurrection...

Also sharing this with Word Art Wednesday and wishing all of you abundant Easter blessings!  You, too, my dear blog friends, are gifts to me!

Easter Blessings and a Giveaway!

Jesus is Risen!  
(This giveaway has ended.  Thank you to all those who joined.)

St. Alphosus de Ligouri, in "The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ," commented, "St. Laurence Justinian remarks: 'We have seen Him who is wise infatuated through an excess of love.' We have beheld Him who is eternal wisdom itself, the Son of God, become a fool for us, by reason of the too great love which he bore toward us."

I celebrate God's great love and saving work for me!  Oh, what he was willing to go through for me!  

Blessed John Henry Newman, as quoted in Evangelizo,  comments:

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118[117],24)...

This is Easter Day. Let us say this again and again to ourselves with fear and great joy. As children say to themselves, "This is the spring," or "This is the sea," trying to grasp the thought..., let us say, “This is the Day of Days, the Royal Day, the Lord's Day (Rv 1,10 Gk.). This is the Day on which Christ arose from the dead; the Day which brought us salvation”. It is a Day which has made us greater than we know...

We have had enough of weariness, and dreariness, and listlessness, and sorrow, and remorse. We have had enough of this troublesome world. We have had enough of its noise and din...But now there is stillness; and it is a stillness that speaks... such is our blessedness now. Calm and serene days have begun; and Christ is heard in them, and His “still small voice” (1Kgs 19,12), because the world speaks not. Let us only put off the world, and we put on Christ (Eph 4,22; Rm 13,14)... May that unclothing be unto us a clothing upon of things invisible and imperishable! May we grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, season after season, year after year, till He takes us to Himself... into the kingdom of His Father and our Father, His God and our God (Jn 20,17). 

And to celebrate this "Day which has made us greater than we know..." I'm having an Easter giveaway!  Celebrate with me and let me know if you would like to have the chance to win "Easter Angel," this original  5" x 7" mixed media painting (watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil on paper).  I made it especially for you, my visitors and blog friends.  If you follow my blog through Google Friends Connect (in the sidebar) or Google+ (top of the page) or if you shared about my giveaway, let me know in separate comments and get extra entries to the giveaway.  My giveaway ends on May 19, Pentecost Sunday, which marks the end of the Easter Season this year.

A blessed Easter season, dearest visitors and blog friends!  "May we grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, season after season, year after year, till He takes us to Himself... into the kingdom of His Father and our Father, His God and our God (Jn 20,17)."

Linking up with Paint Party Friday, Faith Filled Friday, Spiritual Sundays, Inspire Me Monday, Share the Shelter and Word Art Wednesday.

Nothing is Impossible with God

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, when we celebrate Mary's "Yes."  Even if at first she was greatly troubled, she still said, "Behold, I am the Handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word." Luke 1:38  

Whatever life brings, I, too, would like to be able to say yes and remember that nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1:37

Here is my prayer journal page today...

and "a modern meditation on the Divine Mystery of the Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary"...

Here are some pictures I posted in my new Instagram account (my user name is peggyapl).  A painting of Mary...

a mosaic I saw in Madaba, Jordan...

and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

The lower level of the Basilica contains the Grotto of the Annunciation, where, according to tradition, the childhood home of Mary was located.

I'm sharing this in Spiritual Sundays and Inspire Me Monday.  And if you haven't joined my giveaway yet, you might want to have a chance at winning this painting...

Just leave me a comment in my giveaway post!  Happy Feast of the Annunciation!

WOYWW: Easter Greetings!

Happy Easter greetings to you, my dear blog friends!  Even if you don't celebrate Easter, I think greetings of happiness are always good to give and receive!

On my desk today for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday is an illustration I am working on from yesterday's bible reading..  Sometimes when life is full of challenges, we wonder why our prayers seem unheard and God seems to be hiding.  The reflection about John 20, from an anonymous 13th century monastic homily says...

“She turned around and saw Jesus standing there but did not recognize him.” A touching scene, filled with goodness, in which he who is desired and sought reveals himself while hiding himself. He hides himself so as to be sought even more ardently, found with even more joy, held even more carefully until he is brought, so as to remain there, into the dwelling place of love (cf Sg 3,4)...

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Do you have him you are looking for and not know him? The true, eternal joy and you weep? You have within you the one you are looking for without. In truth, you are standing outside in floods of tears beside a tomb. My tomb is your heart. I am not dead in it but resting, alive for eternity. Your soul is my garden and you are right to think I am the gardener. The new Adam, I tend and keep my paradise. Your tears, your love and your desire are my work. You possess me within you without knowing it and that is why you seek me without. So I am going to appear to you there, too, to make you return to yourself so as to find within what you are looking for without.

To celebrate Easter, I'm having a giveaway!  If you would like a chance to win this original mixed media piece, please leave a comment in my giveaway post (not this post).  Don't forget to leave me separate comments if you are a follower or if you share my giveaway.

Sharing this in Word Art Wednesday, Paint Party Friday and Faith Filled Friday!