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 Blog

2025 Calendar: Now Available!

28/11/2024

 

*Orders are now Closed*

Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2024

After having received them from the printers this morning, I can announce that my 2025 Calendar is now available for the coming year. The 2025 Calendar is a return both to sharing my artwork as well as the saints (and not yet declared saints) of the Catholic Church.


— Cost for the 2025 Calendars is $30 AUD each, plus postage (within Australia), with a deal for three (3) calendars at $80 AUD.

— Postage is as follows:
     +$3 AUD for 1 calendar
     +$4 AUD for 2*
     +$6 AUD for 3*
     * delivered in the same envelope.

— For International postal orders we will arrange Air Mail costs appropriately, on an order-by-order basis.

​
You can place your order through the form found under the Contact page or by messaging me via Facebook, or talk to me in person.


Vincent Cavanagh
28 Nov 2024
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2024
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2024

* 2025 Calendar Flip-Through GIF added — 6 December 2024.

Eileen O’Connor, ‘The Little Mother’

16/10/2024

 
Picture
Eileen O’Connor, The Little Mother
3-4 October 2024
Ballpoint pen on Bond Layout paper, with minor digital correction of errant line work.

Vincent Cavanagh © 2024

EILEEN ROSALINE O’CONNOR was an Australian Catholic nun and co-founder with Fr Ted McGrath of the Society of Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor – more colloquially known as the Brown Nurses or just Our Lady’s Nurses – a religious order whose mission was to give free care and nursing to the poor, especially those who had fallen through the cracks of regular systems.

Eileen could not stand or walk for much of her life due to a severe curvature of her spine from having fallen out of her perambulator (pram) at a young age. The extent of her height was 3 feet 9 inches (115 centimetres) from which was given the affectionate nickname of The Little Mother.

She lived most of her life at Coogee, a suburb of Sydney, except for when God healed her enough to go to Rome to obtain approval of her fledgling religious order. Such was her determination, that the rigours of travel did not deter her.

Despite being bedridden most of the time, Eileen was the hub of the order. She co-ordinated much through telephone calls. At the end of the day, she welcomed the Nurses home, and received their confidences. Having been so chronically ill herself, she knew just how much kindness and tenderness were needed in caring for the ill and the elderly, and how important it was to maintain the dignity of anyone they ministered to.

She died at the age of 28 from chronic spinal tuberculosis and exhaustion.


On Friday 16 August 2024, Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher OP officially signed off on the collated Australian documentation of Eileen O’Connor’s life for the Cause of Sainthood. And on Monday 14 October 2024, Archbishop Fisher formally presented the documentation in Rome to Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.


For further information about the life and work of Eileen O’Connor and the story of the Sisters of Our Lady’s Nurse of the Poor, visit the website for the Cause of Eileen’s Canonization here.

And as a clarifier, this step of the Canonization process is seeking for her to be recognized and approved by the Vatican as a Blessed; the step before being named a Saint in the Catholic Church.


Vincent Cavanagh
16 October 2024

Our Lady of La Vang, Viet Nam (2024)

22/8/2024

 
Painted 20–21 August 2024
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2024

On this Feast Day of The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary (22 August), I am relieved to finally reveal my attempt at portraying the apparition of Our Blessed Mother in 1798 to gathered Vietnamese Christians taking refuge from the persecution by the Nguyen Dynasty in the jungle forest in central Việt Nam, near the village of Quang Tri.

The origins of this project go back to November last year (2023) with a visit to the seminary used by the Diocese, but research for this painting started in earnest on 5 July 2024.

For more information about the apparition and Pope John Paul II’s later involvement read this detailed summary about Our Lady of La Vang at The Miracle Hunter website here.
This is the handed down Description of the Virgin from that same Miracle Hunter summary:
One evening, according to tradition, a lady of great beauty appeared to the refugees in the jungle, clad in white and surrounded by light, holding the infant Jesus in her arms, with two charming boys holding torches at her side. The lady walked back and forth several times in front of the Christians, her feet touching the ground.
Even the non-Christians who were there witnessed the vision.​”
I opted to save myself some artistic headache and stress by deciding to only focus on the Virgin, child, and torch bearing youths rather than attempting to include the onlooking Christians and have even less room for the actual apparition. I think that that decision has born itself out well.


Vincent Cavanagh
22 August 2024

12 Months Later

25/1/2024

 
Reviewing my 12-Month Social Media Exodus.
Picture
Heading towards the Marquês de Pombal Monument, Lisbon. Vincent Cavanagh ©2023

​Well, it’s been 12 months since I started my Social Media Exodus and now it’s time to review the year that was.

​
Okay, so starting off, 2023 was World Youth Day year for me. You may have seen some posts here and there on the blog and archived on the website, and possibly also on Facebook (sarcasm).

Speaking of the aforementioned social media platform, I think it’s safe to say that (apart from WYD) I haven’t been signed into it any more than strictly necessary. Nowadays it functions, for me personally, as more of an alert-slash-events manager and reference tool for finding people and past events.
​
Since WYD I have been using Messenger far more than I thought I ever would in my whole life.
It’s certainly been a change of pace having a social life.
Picture
A day out on Sydney Harbour. Vincent Cavanagh ©2023

Twitter is all but officially mothballed, waiting for a reason (if any) to actively post on it again.
​
Even though most Catholic parish Youth Ministries appear to have highly active profiles, I still don’t ever see myself returning to Instagram. Certainly not under my own name in any case.

As for YouTube… oh, dear. Apart from proactively uploading two videos from WYD Lisbon featuring the lead vocals of Fr Samuel French I’ve been passively over-consuming other people’s YouTube videos.
My anxieties over travel, packing, and WYD preparations absolutely did not help cut down on my ‘Watch time’ as I had hoped to rein in 12 months earlier. Being stuck in a maelstrom of choice-paralysis over what small new camera to buy to take over with me to Europe for the pilgrimage didn’t cut down wasted hours either. And in any case, I ended up taking more photos with my smartphone than I did with the camera I bought to stop me over-using said same smartphone. Live and learn, eh? I have bought a Peak Design camera strap that should help aid in using the camera more in future.
​
And speaking of the future, I am all too aware of my current (ahem!) “habit” of bookmarking videos and website articles about various different foods, religious sites, and locations of interest across both East and Southeast Asia in the possibility of preparation(!) for 2027 World Youth Day. People are not kidding when they talk about the WYD/Travel "bug".
As an aside, I still don’t think that I’d ever be able to learn, let alone read, Hangul / Hangeul, the Korean alphabet. I’ve accepted that A) I don’t have to know everything and B) that I’m going to be especially reliant on those who can and have persevered to learn Korean.

Returning to YouTube specifically, I did come across the DF Tube Chrome Extension that has been of some great help in cutting down more video-related rabbit holes than I would have without it.
Its main attraction (for me) was the ability to turn off the righthand video suggestion box whilst watching a YouTube video. Admittedly it makes things lopsided visually, but it does mean that I have fewer distractions from the video in front of me. Sadly, DF Tube can’t do anything about my procrastination. That’s all on me.


​So, to sum up. I have been relatively withdrawn from my social media profiles – discounting blogging about the WYD pilgrimage. I have gained a social life that is aided by messaging applications which come with their own problems – the applications, not the social life.

My personal struggles with self-discipline and YouTube over-consumption remain. In part I know that some of this is due to a lack of projects and regular routine. Pray for me.

Putting my focus on posting blogs and standardizing parts of this website has helped me feel less pressured than I would have been if I was still only posting on Facebook or Twitter. As well as not having as much comparison-itis with the edited and project lives of other people on social media. This doesn’t mean that I still don’t struggle with comparison, it’s just not as severe as it has been in the past.


In closing I think that I will continue as I have done so these past 12 months and with God’s help get a better grip over my YouTube-surfing and other self-defeating habits.

Until next time.


Vincent Cavanagh
25 Jan 2024

Home | Blog

St Andrew  Dũng-Lạc, Vietnamese Martyr

25/11/2023

 
Drawn on 23 November 2023.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
St Andrew Dũng-Lạc was a Vietnamese Catholic priest who was martyred under the Nguyễn dynasty in Việt Nam (Vietnam) with his fellow priest and countryman St Peter Phạm Truong Vǎn Thi by beheading.

They were both named among the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs who were canonised by Pope John Paul II on 19 June 1988.

Fuller histories of both St Andrew 
Dũng-Lạc and St Peter Thi can be found on the Santi e Beati website:
St Andrew Dũng-Lạc
St Peter Phạm Truong Vǎn Thi 

The Memorial of St Andrew Dũng-Lạc and his companions, Vietnames martyrs, is on 24 November.


Vincent Cavanagh
25 Nov 2023

Caroline Chisholm City Walk (01)

30/4/2023

 
#ChisholmWalkSydney
Picture
Walking Tour Map, Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
Today was the first ever Caroline Chisholm City Walk through Sydney CBD: starting from Wynyard Station; stopping for Mass at St Patrick's Church Hill; pausing at the site of the Female Immigrants House founded by Mrs Chisholm in 1841; and finishing at St Mary's Cathedral.

Below are some of the photos from today.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
Fr Kevin Stewart, Marist, celebrated the 10am Mass today (30 April 2023).
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
Preserved foundations of William Davis' cottage where the consecrated Eucharist was left behind by Fr Jeremiah O'Flynn in 1818.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
Crossing Harrington Street, continuing along Bridge Street.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
We stopped for coffee at the This Way Canteen in front of Museum of Sydney.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
Continuing on from having stopped outside of Hyde Park Barracks.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
A few final photos on the steps of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, NSW.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
A last small group photo before catching the train home.
Vincent Cavanagh
~30 April 2023

St Peter Chanel, S.M.

1/3/2023

 
Painted 23–24, 26 Feb 2023.
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
St Peter Chanel is the Protomartyr of Oceania, and Patron of Wallis and Futuna.
He was a French Marist father and religious superior of seven fellow Marist missionaries sent out to the region, having left France on the 24th of December 1836.

Read More

Prisoner for the Faith

3/2/2023

 
Picture
Vincent Cavanagh © 2023
Venerable François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận
​

Former Coadjutor Archbishop of Sài Gòn (now Hồ Chí Minh City), imprisoned for his faith and family connections by the communist government of Vietnam for 13 years after the fall of Sài Gòn. He was released in 1988 but kept under house arrest. He became exiled in 1991 when he was allowed to visit Rome but never to return to Vietnam. He died in Rome in 2002, aged 74. On the fifth anniversary of his death his cause for sainthood was begun. He was named Venerable by Pope Francis on 4 May 2017, the first step on the long road to being made a Saint by the Catholic Church.
​
This painting was the fruit of listening to the introduction and homily by the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, for the Solemn Pontifical Funeral Mass of George Cardinal Pell (1941–2023) on 2 Feb 2023.

Vincent Cavanagh ~ 3 February 2023
    Picture

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