Featured Window

Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

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MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: St. Patrick Church

City: Brighton

Window Shape: 2 (rectangle)

Date of Window: 1999

Subject/Title of Window: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

Brief Description of Subject: The First American born saint was born in New York in 1774 into an Episcopal family. Her mother died in child birth and her father remarried. Elizabeth was sent away to live with relatives in the country and feeling abandoned, she sought comfort in reading the Bible, in nature and in God’s presence.

At nineteen years of age she married William Seton a wealthy businessman. Together they had five children. During that time Elizabeth was active in support of the pop and founded the Society of the Relief of the poor Widows and Small Children. When her husband’s business and then his health began to fail, the Setons traveled to Italy in hopes his health would recover. It was in Italy, living with Catholic friends that Elizabeth received firsthand experience of Catholicism. Elizabeth began attending Mass and questioning and reordering her faith that would eventually lead her to become Catholic.

When she returned to New York, her family disapproved her conversion, shunning her socially and financially. At the request of a Catholic priest, Elizabeth opened a school for girls in Baltimore. This school became the basis for a group of women dedicated to the education of children and caring for the poor. In 1809 the Sisters of St. Joseph, later the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, was officially founded by Elizabeth now known as Mother Seton.

The Sister of Charity established orphanages and hospitals and established the parochial school system in the United States. Besides her many duties in the community Mother Seton also composed music, wrote hymns, and prepared spiritual discourse. She died in Emmetsburg on January 4, 1821. The chapel window pictures her with a school house and book.


Type of Glass and Technique: Opalescent 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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