HOLY CARD OF THE BLACK-EYED CHILD WHO LIVED IN IMITATION OF CHRIST

Produced by Portraits of Saints Catholic Art and Gifts

I discovered on Etsy a lovely holy card of Little Nellie of Holy God. This would make a wonderful gift for a child about to receive their First Holy Communion. I pray people buy it in large stacks.  I would, however, make one tiny suggestion: that future editions of the card portray Nellie as having dark, almost black eyes. The nuns who cared for Little Nellie in Cork City of 1907 always described Nellie as having penetrating black eyes that impressed upon others her strong character.

Nellie's eyes had an abnormally serious stare for one so young, but then she was making a sacrifice of  two debilitating diseases (her jaw was nastily diseased, her lungs infested with TB) and her spine was painfully cracked and misshapen. Bishop Athanasius Schneider spoke glowingly about Nellie's "spirituality of reparation" in the most recent interview he gave Dr. Taylor Marshall. I was delighted to hear Bishop Schneider commend Little Nellie's self-sacrifice in offering her severe sickness in atonement for offences against her beloved Holy God.

Nellie was a mystic from the time she was a babe - from the time she was a tiny toddler she knew "Holy God" was present in the Church - even though no one had instructed her. When Nellie accompanied her father to Mass, she talked non-stop there and back as to the presence of Holy God in Mass. Yet, Nellie's willingness to suffer dire agony came after she was instructed as to why Our Lord suffered His Passion.

When Nellie's mother died, and her father found he could no longer cope with four young children, Nellie was taken into the care of the Good Shepherd Sisters in Cork. It was here that Nellie was nursed by Miss Hall, a young woman who was a convert from Protestantism to the Faith, and Miss Hall was fond of taking Nellie to pray in the chapel.  One day, Nellie was doing the Stations of the Cross with Miss Hall, when the little girl was perplexed and aghast as to the paintings of Jesus being nailed to the Cross, and she demanded of Miss Hall, "But why Him letting them do dat?  Him could stop dem if Him liked!" Miss Hall told Nellie that Our Lord gave Himself to pay for our sins, and when she had understood, Nellie cried out, "O, POOR HOLY GOD, POOR HOLY GOD!" After this,
Nellie gave herself to "offering up" her sufferings and she used cradle the crucifix in her hands and say of her pain, "What is it compared to what He suffered for me?"

Our Lord also appeared to Little Nellie and He gave Little Nellie instruction in the Faith, but this was after Nellie had made herself a victim soul for His sake, and after the time Nellie changed from having the propensity to throw a tantrum at Mass to being extraordinarily devout before the Blessed Sacrament.

This may be bought from Portraits of the Saints