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Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

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MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: St. Andrew's Church

Studio Name: Loire (Gabriel) Studios

City: Rochester

Window Shape: 2 (rectangle)

Date of Window: 1969

Subject/Title of Window: The Story of Salvation, Part 1-Moses Saved From the Waters

Brief Description of Subject: This is the first of a series of ten windows located along the sides of the nave. According to the Church "The theme of the faceted art glass at St. Andrew is the Story of Salvation." This is done through the story of the exodus of God's chosen people from Egypt. Each window, in somewhat chronological order, depicts God's hand in freeing his chosen people from enslavement by the Pharaoh, making a covenant with them, and leading them on a path to the land of milk and honey. This parallels Christ dying to free us from the sin of Adam, making a new covenant, and with his resurrection a promise of heaven. In addition to the story of the exodus, there are symbols that appear to be unrelated to this narrative. There is also numerology --- each of the 10 windows is made with 4 panels, totaling 40. 10 is the number of commandments and 40 is the number used throughout the Bible to symbolize new creation.
 
The artist's watercolor for each of these windows names the key objects depicted and will be listed with translations from French. For this window:
 
1 er Commandement --- 1st Commandment
La Trinite  --- The Trinity
Moise sauve des eaux (eau berceau) --- Moses saved from the waters (water cradle)
 
The middle panels symbolically depict the Trinity --- Father, by the hand of God, Son, by the cruciform halo (partly covered by the hand), and the Holy Spirit, by the descending dove. Scripturally the Trinity appears at the Baptism of Christ.
 
The story of Moses Saved From the Waters is found in Exodus 2:1 -10 --- The Pharaoh had decreed that henceforth all Jewish males born were to be thrown into the Nile. Moses' mother saved him by putting him in a papyrus basket and placing it in the Nile. The Pharaoh's daughter chanced upon it and decided to raise him as her own. The right panel symbolizes this story with a water cradle. This story parallels the story of Herod killing all male children under the age of two in Bethlehem and the Christ Child saved when his mother takes him to Egypt.
 
The Church identified the structure in the left panel as a temple. 

Condition of Window: Good

Height: 4'

Width: 15'

Type of Glass and Technique: Slab or Faceted Glass (Dalle de Verre)

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