Holy Card
-- 4.25x2.75"
-- Sturdy 14 Point Cardstock
-- Matte finish both sides

In this beautiful vintage holy card, we have the hope of the world! “Surrexit Christus spes mea” is Latin and means “The risen Christ is our hope.” Christ has risen from the dead! He has triumphed over the grave! His feet don’t even touch the ground! As it also says on the card, Alleluia!

The world 'alleluia' comes to English through Latin and Greek from Hebrew. The older form of the word in English is hallelu-jah, where you can see more easily the “jah”, the first part of the name Yahweh or Jehovah. So alleluia means “Praise to God!” or “Praise to Yahweh!” or “Song of Praise to Yahweh!” It can mean even more, which is why the word isn’t translated to a short form like Praise God or something like that. It is complex word straight from Jesus’s time, like the word amen.

This striking holy card was the work of K. van de Vyvere-Petyt, a Dutch printer from Brugge, Belgium, active around the turn of the last century. Although the artwork has more of a German feel than French, we think he printed it in Latin so he could offer in any country. Circa 1890-1900.

On the back is a prayer to the Risen Lord, bringer of life and gladness.

Art prints of this image are at:


As with this and all of our images, you may have a custom holy card made with a personalized back printed for you. See this listing for details:

Thank you for your interest.

Sue and John

Image Restoration © www.CatholicArtAndJewelry.com
Picture of the Sacre Coeur Basilica today is by the photographer Tonchino via Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. We are grateful for their letting us use this picture.