Featured Window

Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Click any image to enlarge.

MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: St. Joseph Catholic Church

Studio Name: G. C. Riordan Stained Glass Studios

City: St. Joseph

Window Shape: 3 (arched)

Date of Window: 1904

Subject/Title of Window: St. Cecilia

Brief Description of Subject: The choir loft and stairs leading to the choir loft obscure what was originally a single window. The harp portion can be viewed clearly from the choir loft and most of the bottom section can be viewed from the floor level of the church.

St. Cecilia playing the organ dressed in pale green gown with gold overdrape. A harp is displayed in the figure above.

St. Cecilia was born into a noble family in Rome. When forced to marry a nobleman named Valerian, Cecilia vowed to remain a virgin. The story is told that at her wedding she did not hear the music but sat apart singing to God in her heart. Eventually, she converted her husband and his brother to Christianity. The three developed a ministry of giving Christian burial to martyrs in Rome. When she was arrested, Cecilia refused the order to worship false gods. As a result, she was suffocated and beheaded. In 817 A.D., when her grave was discovered, Cecilia's body was miraculously intact.

Inscriptions: Church Choir


Condition of Window: Good

Height: 18'

Width: 44"

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.

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