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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 2-The Burning Bush

Brief Description of Subject: This is the second of a series of 10 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 this exodus, there are symbols that appear to be unrelated to this narrative. There is also numerology --- each of the 10 windows is made with four panels, totaling 40 panels. 10 is the number of the 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:
 
2 eme Commandement --- 2nd Commandment
La Poission (unreadable) --- The Fish (???)
Le Buisson Ardent (Le unreadable)--- The Burning Bush (The ???)
 
The left panels depict a burning bush with an angel, and the back of a kneeling Moses formed by the resin in front of the bush. This panel points to the story of the Burning Bush found in Exodus 3 --- Moses is attracted to a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire, and sees an angel in the middle of the bush. He hears a voice who identifies itself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and tells Moses he is to convince the Pharaoh to let my people go. This story will be used by Jesus --- when questioned by the Sadducees on the resurrection of the dead, he responded, "And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?' He is the God not of the dead, but of the living." Mark 12:26 - 27 (NRSVCE)
 
For the remaining panels, the fish with wavy red lines underneath possibly is meant to symbolize the story found in Exodus 7:14 - 22. God is unleashing plagues on Egypt in an attempt to convince the Pharaoh to let the Israelis leave. The first plague --- In the presence of the Pharaoh, Aaron takes Moses' staff and strikes the water of the Nile, and all the waters of Egypt turned into blood, and the fish died.

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.

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