Art Charity

I've discovered a way to incorporate everything I do. Lay Missionary of Charity (service), St. Catherine's Apprentice (art), Spiritual Homesteading (blog), MaryJane Farmgirl Sisterhood (earning awesome merit badges), Team McArthur (charity and community). . . . all rolled into one makes Art Charity! Art Charity will be an extension of my art business, which I pursued for my MaryJane entrepreneur badge. I've written that my whole desire behind my business was never to be successful, but to put my art to service. Art Charity is the fruit that desire! My St. Catherine's Apprentice website and this blog will be the canvas to share this.

So those who read this blog already have already met Adam McArthur. He will be the first to receive these donations. But I'd like to expand this service beyond Team McArthur to other charitable causes. My own unique way of giving~using art to spread love!


So here's my blurb:

St. Catherine's Apprentice would like to present Art Charity!! All profits received from this series of drawings will go to charity. Each series will be inspired by and created specifically for a certain charitable cause. It’s art for a cause!

The first Recipient for Art Charity profits will be the McArthur Family! Adam McArthur is a husband and father of 3, diagnosed with brain cancer. His family is in need of donations to continue his cancer treatments and assist with their daily living expenses. You can read more about Adam on Healer in Your Heart and on the Team McArthur Facebook page set up to raise awareness for his condition and support for the family.

An imperative component of Adam’s cancer treatment is his food. He is on a strict gluten-free, sugar-free, vegetarian diet.  Therefore this series will be called Portraits of Produce: the McArthur Collection. Raising awareness for Adam, brain cancer, natural cancer treatment options, organic foods and local farmers, this collection will include a weekly drawing inspired by locally grown, organic produce item purchased from area farmer markets.  Each “portrait” of a fruit or veggie will be coupled with a tasty recipe and farm highlights.

It's going to be exciting! God willing, this will only be a precurser to a larger project I have in store called Saints and Veggies.

Save a farm. Buy local.

Support Adam. Buy art J

Team McArthur Yard Sale Fundraiser

 

Follow that sign!! From the flea market to the yard sale. . .

 

Saturday Oct. 27, 2012

Luckily, the weather held out for us despite being cloudy and overcast the entire day. We had a steady flow of yard sale patrons for a majority of the time. We are so grateful to everyone who donated items or bought them, or like me, did BOTH! What?! There was some good stuff there. :) And when you're sitting there all day looking at these things, a few items are bound to catch your eye!

So what's next you ask? We are in the workings of a Chick-Fil-A Spirit Night with a tentative date of November 27th. Vanessa McArthur just launched the new web page Healer in Your Heart that raises awareness about Adam's condition and aids Team McArthur in our fundraising efforts. You can track us there or on the Team McArthur Facebook page.

Team McArthur Flea Market Fundraiser

On Saturday October 20, 2012 Team McArthur set up two tables at a local flea market. Friends and church members donated an amazing number of items. A garage full, in fact, many of them brand new! It was a wonderful experience and we met some terrific people at the market with their own stories to share of loved ones who have battled or are battling cancer. We made an outstanding profit from this event!!! It will go a long ways to assisting the McArthurs with Adam's treatments. What didn't get sold at the flea market will have a second chance this coming Saturday in a follow up yard sale.

 

 

 

A couple of our "junior" volunteers.

One of our two tables. . .

The story of Mother Teresa and Adam McArthur continued...

I've just completed a day of home school, picked up my oldest daughter from her school, cleaned up a mess of a house, the younger kids are tucked away for a few moments--I've got my hot country peach tea, I'm sitting down in front of my computer ready to continue telling you the story of Adam McArthur and Mother Teresa.

Alright. Where was I?

The prayer from India, that's right! Tracked it down today.

Almighty and powerful God, nothing is impossible to you.You worked so many miracles while walking on this sinful world. The blind received sight, the lame walked, the dead brought back to life. Listen to the prayers of this humble LMC group in union with our Blessed Mother Teresa and grant a speedy healing to Adam McArthur from brain cancer. We ask this through your mighty name. Amen.

 

 

That is one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard. It almost brought tears to my eyes.

 

 

I still didn't have a relic though. I still didn't know really where to look. I was having a heck of a time getting in touch with Sr. Clovis, the new Supior General of the convent, who ironically (again) was the very sister I drove around D.C. during my first Missionary of Charity visit years before. She had recently switched houses and was now the sister I needed to speak with that had the authority to make the decision on the relic.

 

Back on August 31st, Vanessa had posted to our online chat group that she was feeling drawn to a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I had recommended she visit Monsignor John Esseff's web page called Building a Kingdom of Love: The Triumph of the Sacred Heart to see if she could glean some spiritual nuggets from it. You see, Msgr. Esseff was one of the two retreat directors when I attended my first and only LMC retreat a few years before. He is totally amazing. He's a priest of over 50 years, a former exorcist, a spiritual director and confessor of Mother Teresa, who met and is a spiritual child of Saint Padre Pio, who to this day is a retreat director to the Missionaries of Charity around the world. I could write an entire blog post about my experience at that LMC retreat years before, it made such an impression on me. I've been following him ever since. So anyways, her mention of the Sacred Heart made me recall Msgr. Esseff.

 

That one reply I made days before recommending the site was important but at the time an isolated incident. It was made before being given the mission to find a relic. I thought since his web page was proving to be a help for Vanessa I'd email him and ask for his prayers. In that same email I relayed the chain of events that had me now seeking a Mother Teresa relic. I asked if he'd join me in seeking her intercession and say a prayer or point me in the right direction in finding this relic--as I truly felt JUST finding a relic of hers would take a small miracle, it seemed so impossible of a task. That was on September 3rd.

 

September 4th, I received a reply email. He had prayed for Adam and had a second class relic he was willing to send to the McArthurs if I forwarded him their address! WHAT?! Had I done it? Was that small miracle taking place and my mission being fulfilled? All it took was one email? My heart was about to beat out of my chest. Of course I got the address to him ASAP.

 

September 5th, Monsignor mailed out the relic. September 5th. Mother's feast day! (Ironically?!)

 

I am pleased to report from Vanessa that Adam prays with that relic every day and sleeps with it under his pillow at night. I love that part! Seeing how he has brain cancer keeping that relic close to his head--under his pillow--where he needs the healing. I say that because whenever I pray for him and pray for Mother Teresa's healing of his tumors I envision her gently, lovingly, placing her two hands on Adam's hair and leaning in to kiss his head. A kiss of healing. A kiss of peace. A kiss of love.

 

I told you yesterday that I would conclude this story. But this story is yet to have an ending. It really has only begun a new chapter. And God is the only one who knows how it will end. I told Vanessa back on August 31st,  "I get this sense that something beautiful is happening here--you know like that supernatural kind of beautiful ♥."

"Something" beautiful is definitely happening.

 

Perhaps we will not receive our miracle in the form that we seek but I truly believe that miracle is not going untranspired. And besides, with all the prayers being sought for Adam from Mother Teresa, their souls are surely old friends by this point :)

 

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I have stayed to my commitment to pray a continuous novena for Adam. I pray the Jesus is my All in All Novena. I just keep cycling through it--over and over again. You can read some exerts and recite it here.

 

In addition I pray the Prayer for Canonization:

 

 

Jesus, you made Blessed Teresa an inspiring example of firm faith and burning charity, an extraordinary witness to the way of spiritual childhood, and a great and esteemed teacher of the value and dignity of every human life. Grant that she may be venerated and imitated as one of the Church's canonized saints.
Hear the requests of all those who seek her intercession, especially the petition I now implore... (mention here the favour you wish to pray for).

May we follow her example in heeding Your cry of thirst from the Cross and joyfully loving You in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, especially those most unloved and unwanted.

We ask this in Your name and through the intercession of Mary, Your Mother and the Mother of us all.
Amen.

 



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So, I'll keep you posted as to the new unfoldings with Team McArthur and any new revelations of the story of Adam McArthur and Mother Teresa. To be continued ;)