I have a small box of holy cards at home. I’ve collected them for many years so some are from my youth. I even have a relic of my patron saint in there that a priest friend of our family bought for me when he traveled to Italy. I was born on the feast day of Saint Paul and that’s how I got my name but it’s not the Saul/Saint Paul of the Letters, it’s Saint Paul of the Cross We used to book mark our missals with holy cards and they gave some when we made our first communion and confirmation and I fell in love with them. They were every bit as cool as baseball cards. I have some from relatives funerals and the Katarii shrine in Auriesville, New York
but most of my cards are from previous trips to Spain when we used to stop in almost every church we saw. We sort of have that under control now.
There used to be a cluster of religious shops around the Plaza Mayor in Madrid and there still are a few but the Catholics are dying and commerce has a new face. We stopped in the full blown priest supply store above and asked if they had any holy cards, they’re called estampas in Spanish, and the clerk recommended another shop where I found ten or so interesting ones for two euros.
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