Featured Window

Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Click any image to enlarge.

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 4-Passover

Brief Description of Subject: This is the fourth 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:
 
4 eme Cdt. --- Fourth Commandment
Le coeur enflamme --- The inflamed heart
La paque en Egypte --- The Passover in Egypt
L'ange --- The angel
Taches de sang --- Blood spots
 
Passover in Egypt, the angel, and blood spots: The Passover is the name given to a Jewish feast that celebrates their escape from slavery in Egypt. The story of the Passover is found in Exodus 12:1 - 29. To convince the Pharaoh to let my people go, God plans to kill all first born males in Egypt. The Israelites are told to slay an unspotted lamb and place the blood on their door as a signal for the Angel of Death to pass over their house. The unspotted lamb slayed in a Passover celebration became known as the "Lamb of God." John the Baptist will apply this name to Christ when he greeted him with "Behold the Lamb of God" (John 1:29). Pictured in the left panels is the Angel of Death passing over doors spotted with blood, thus sparing the sleeping children below. As the blood spots of the lamb saved the Israelite children from the Angel of Death, the blood of Christ (Lamb of God) saves us from the death of sin.
 
Also seen in this window is an inflamed heart.

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