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Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

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MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: St. James Episcopal Church

Studio Name: Lamb (J. and R.) Co.

City: Birmingham

Window Shape: 2 (rectangle)

Subject/Title of Window: St. John

Brief Description of Subject: The young beardless Apostle, John, is shown writing his Gospel. On the scroll is the first verse of that Gospel, "In the beginning was the word and the word was God." To his left is a snake crawling out of a cup. This attribute for John comes from the legend that when John's prayers brought down the temple of Diana, a priest of Diana named Aristodemus challenged John that if he could drink a poisoned cup of wine, he would convert to Christianity and be baptized. When John blessed the cup, the poison changed into a snake, and crawled out of the cup. To John's right and lower left is an eagle. In discussions in early Christianity on how many Gospels should be included in a Bible, Irenaeus contended that there must be exactly four. One of the reasons he gave was that in Revelation 4:6 - 8 , there were exactly four winged creatures surrounding the throne of God. "The first was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third a face like a man, the fourth like a flying eagle." With this association with the four Gospels that became part of the Bible, each gospel writer was assigned the symbol of one of these creatures. John was assigned the eagle as an eagle soars high towards heaven, and John's Gospel emphasizes the heavenly nature of Christ.
 
In the predella is an inscription from John's Revelation 21:1. John is writing about his vision of Christ's second coming and the end of the world, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth." This is a restatement of Isaiah 66:22, "I will make a new heaven and a new earth, which will live forever." 
 
A tree with fruit rises up along the right side. The water for a river is seen by the inscription in the predella. These are from a continuation of John's vision --- I saw a New Jerusalem and "the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb ... On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit. (Revelation 22: 1-2)
 
Seen in the predella is as yet an unidentified symbol.

Inscriptions: And I Saw A New Heaven And A New Earth
In the beginning was the word and the word was with God.


Height: 57"

Width: 37"

Type of Glass and Technique: Antique or Cathedral Glass

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.

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