A Short 3 Card Update

Hello again, the weather has been so good the last couple of days, it's hard to justify sitting inside and doing an update. But I have received a few choice cards this past week and I thought I'd do a short 3 card update. So here goes.

My first card is from The Vatican. On it we see Pope Francis. Affectionately called Papa Francesco he is the 266th and current head of the Catholic Church, in which capacity he is Bishop of Rome and absolute Sovereign of the Vatican City State. Francis is the first Jesuit Pope, the first Pope from the Americas, the first Pope from the Southern Hemisphere and the first non-European Pope since Pope Gregory III  in 741, 1272 years earlier.

 

David used a stamp featuring Pope Leo X. It is one of 2 in a 2013 set. 

 My next card comes from Panama. It has 3 views on it which we can talk about. On the left is the waterfall "El Macho ". It thunders 120 feet and is part of the river known as "Quebrada Maravilla ". On the top right, we have one of the many species of hummingbirds that can be found in the El Valle de Anton area. On the lower right is the famous Golden Toads, which measure a half  inch - 1 inch in length.  They can only be found in the mountains surrounding El Valle de Anton.

This card is the result of a swap I did with Javier back in Dec of 2013. I am just now getting my card, it was actually only posted on May 8, of this year. As they say, Good Things come to those who wait. 

Javier used 2 stamps from 2001. They celebrate the independence of Panama from Spain, on Nov 28, 1821. 

The last card for today. It comes from SMOM. The Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The prepaid card  was actually issued by the Order on 27 April of this year. It celebrated Pope Francis declaration  that  two of his predecessors, John Paul II and John XXIII, were now saints of the Roman Catholic church in an unprecedented double-canonisation mass in St Peter's Square.

Obviously the prepaid postage wasn't enough to get the card to Canada. David used a number of new stamps from 2014. There are 3 Maltese Cross stamps from a set of 6 and a stamp showing a portion of Raphael's 1504 painting  "The Marriage of the Virgin ".

It's certainly great that Canada is one of the countries that mail from Order of Malta can be sent. Not everyone is so lucky. 

That's all for this time Folks. Thanks going out to David for his 2 cards and to Javier . Be sure to check back again soon . Take care.