2 minute read
A Miracle in Glass
The stained glass of this rose window* modulates the raw strength of the sun’s light, making it easier and pleasing to look at. Yet the bands of light projected by the stained glass are not always vividly visible. There must be enough particulate matter for light to refract from, as when there is incense for Mass or when the air is very humid. Allison Girone of G Photography and Films captured this moment, as seen in this picture.
The concept of the architecture is stunning. The designers measured the sun’s position every September 29 at the precise time of day the Norbertine canons would sing the Vesper’s “Magnificat,” and built the abbey, the church, the window, and the altar in reference to that one detail. So it is that on every feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel since the abbey’s dedication, over fifty Norbertine fathers and thirty seminarians sing the “Magnificat” in honor of Our Lady as the light of the stained glass window casts its marvelous colors on the main altar.
It is magnificent proof that architecture does not have to be brutal, naturalistic, and exclusively practical. It can elevate the mind and the soul. It can show that the supernatural can be expressed admirably by the natural. The spiritual can be expressed in a material way. The invisible creation of God can be made visible with the intervention of man’s creativity.
When Solomon finished building his temple for God, and the Ark of the Covenant was placed there, a cloud “filled the house of the Lord.” Solomon said, “The glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.”
The glory of the Lord is made visible in these modern-day miracles in glass.
Post Scriptum: The Californian Norbertines carry on a nine-hundredyear-old tradition. The original Abbey of Saint Michael was in Csorna, Hungary. The night before the occupation of Csorna and the imprisonment of the Norbertines, the abbot sent out seven young Norbertine canons in two groups. They fled over minefields, made it to Austria, then to De Pere, Wisconsin, then to Santa Ana, California. Over sixty years later, there are over seventy Norbertine fathers and over fifty seminarians nationwide. ■
