When you worry about how bad things are in your own parish, how tooth-grating the music is, or how banal the homilies, take heart that however bad it is there, it could be worse. Today’s case study is St. Ambrose “Catholic Community” in Buffalo, New York, whose web site showcases its stained glass windows and describes their meaning. I’m particularly fond of the Prophecy window:
Two of the most important faith proclamations to emanate from the Second Vatican Council, LUMEN GENTIUM (LIGHT OF NATIONS) and GAUDIUM ET SPES (HOPE AND JOY) moke it clear that every Christian Py [sic] virtue of baptism is charged to be a “priest and prophet” - to worship fully and proclaim the Word of God in daily life. The prophetic role, speaking God’s truth at any cost, has played an important role in the history of the Church and does so especially today. This window is dedicated to Prophets. The dominant figure is that of St. Ambrose, patron of this parish. He was a fearless defender of God’s Word in the fourth century. On the lower left side of the window is the picture of Cardinal Henry Newman [sic], the prominent educator and preacher, convert to the Church in the last century, On the right side of the window is a cluster of three modern prophets: Rev. Martin Luther King, Caesar Chavez and Sister Thea Bowman, Sister Thea died in 1991 after spending her religious life promoting Black Catholicism, Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement in New York City, is on the lower left. The last of the prophetic figures is positioned at the bottom of the window. He is Mahatma Gandhi, the Hindu lawyer who became a symbol of pacifism in the struggle for his people’s independence.
Okay, if they didn’t want to use biblical prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or John the Baptist, they couldn’t at least find Catholic, or even Christian prophets? Gandhi as a prominent figure in a Catholic stained glass window? How about Archbishop Oscar Romero? Liberals usually love him because he was a Latin American killed by right-wing death squads. I could think of a dozen better selections off the top of my head.
See, don’t you feel better about your own parish now? Unless of course this is your parish. In that case, sorry.
Technorati Tags: liberalism, saints
Chicago has George Washington within stained glass windows at St. Thomas the Apostle. However, his face is depicted in a scene featuring St. George, the patron of Cardinal (George) Mundelein, with no reference to the father of our country other than the obvious potrait from the $1 bill.
JBP
I’ll feel even better that it’s not my parish when Muslims find out Muhammed is depicted in St. Ambrose’s Window of Non-Christians.
“they bless Moses and Mohammed pictured together in the center of the window. The familiar crescent hangs over the head of Mohammed.”
I also like their window depicting the future Pope John Paul XXIII. Talk about a forward thinking parish!
St. John the Evangelist Church in Portland, Maine, has a stained glass window depicting John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy with the Capitol Building behind them. I’ve blogged on that before.
I like the line in the John XXIII window, “Many believe that this Council represented a Second Pentecost in the Church.”
Yes, if by Pentecost you mean people speaking in different tongues, but no one understanding each other.
Half the people depicted on those windows are rolling in their clouds.
I have written before, the architecture of a church reflects the faith of the parish. This parish seems to have more in common with the Episcopalians who are set to canonize Thurgood Marshall at their upcoming convention than with Catholicism. The window of non-Christiansis really troubling. It places Catholicism and Christianity as just one of many religions with no special claim to truth. I would find it difficult to worship with the images of the Hindu God Shiva or the Egyption God Horus looking down upon me.
CM,
Well, Thurgood Marshall was an Epicscopalian, may qualify as a Saint in the Episcopalian definition.
MLK was not a Roman Catholic, and Gandhi was not either. Cesar Chavez was a Catholic, so at least he would qualify as a campaign, though I have read that he had long periods of dementia and paranoia.
JBP
“On November 21, 1964 the Council Fathers issued a decree on Ecumenism: “UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO.” The decree signalled the end of the counter-reformation”
Well, it was certainly the end of something! Lots of things, actually.
Ad Abolendam:
“Yes, if by Pentecost you mean people speaking in different tongues, but no one understanding each other.”
Funny stuff! hee, hee.