Featured Window

Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

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MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: Madonna University Welcome Center

City: Livonia

Window Shape: 3 (arched)

Subject/Title of Window: Immaculate Heart of Mary

Brief Description of Subject: The sides and canopy provide an architectural setting for this window. Of the six portraiture windows covered, three use the same architecture as this window and three use a different one.
 
Pictured here is the Immaculate Heart of Mary.. The earliest devotions to her Immaculate heart date to the time of St. John Eudes in the 17th Century. The Felician Sisters have a special devotion to the Immaculate Heart.
 
Mary is pictured here with arms in the welcoming pose, and the head in the pose of humility. She is dressed in red (humanity) and a white (purity). Her exposed heart is encircled by a band of roses (flower of love) and topped with flames (burning love). The radiatiating light from her figure is called an aureole symbolizing a holy person.
 
In the background, the flowers on the left are red roses (love for her son and us), and a lily of the valley. The lily of the valley's small flowers droop downwards suggesting tears. The flower became known as "Our Lady's Tears" from the legend that at the crucifixion, lilies of the valley appeared where her tears fell to the ground. The palm tree with fruit refers to the apocryphal story that during the Flight to Egypt a palm tree bent down so the Holy Family could eat its fruit. The village most likely is Bethlehem. The glass to the right of the lilies does not match the scene, at some time the original glass was replaced.
 
At this time it is not known what the predellas of the windows from the closed church looked like. The one used here is viewed separately from the window and contains the inscription.

Inscriptions: BLESSED VIRGIN MARY


Height: Lancet with predella: Height: 8 ft --- Lancet with predella 9 ft.

Width: Width 3 ft. Predella: Width: 29 in (is shorter as in the closed church windows the predella was designed to allow air circulation.)

The MSGC is a constantly evolving database. Not all the data that has been collected by volunteers has been sorted and entered. Not every building has been completely documented.

All images in the Index are either born-digital photographs of windows or buildings or are scans of slides, prints, or other published sources. These images have been provided by volunteers and the quality of the material varies widely.

If you have any questions, additions or corrections, or think you can provide better images and are willing to share them, please contact donald20@msu.edu