Stained glass windows brought back to life at Mount St. Michael
In churches, stained glass windows often tell stories – of the Scriptures, and of a congregation’s history.
There are many fine examples of stained glass windows in Spokane, including eight at the Mount St. Michael Chapel. And one of them, the panel dedicated to St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, has within it a bit of humor that wasn’t supposed to be there.
From 1916 to 1968, candidates for the Jesuit order of the Catholic priesthood trained at Mount St. Michael, which when the seminary closed became a retreat house and home for priests. In 1977, it was purchased by the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen, a traditional Latin-rite Catholic Church, which has operated the site atop a hill in northeast Spokane as a school and a congregation ever since.
The original windows in the chapel were plain glass. After World War II, benefactors came forward to fund a project to install stained glass windows. The eight Gothic windows were designed by the Jesuits, and the completed windows were shipped to the site by Zettler Studios of New York, a company of Bavarian artists and craftsmen who constructed the windows. Installation took place from 1947 to 1951.
These are one-of-a-kind windows, said Chad Pickering of Associated Crafts, the stained glass restoration company in Gilbert, Arizona, now working to repair and refurbish the windows. “They are gorgeous windows. In what we do, we see plain windows and busy windows, but here the artist had a clear view unique to the church. It is easy to see how passionate he was in designing them.”
Ann Marie Netzel, parish secretary and tour guide at Mount St. Michael, said each window has a main theme but also includes smaller panes with related spiritual symbols.
The window featuring St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, who in the 1500s served as the doorkeeper at the Jesuit College in Majorca, Spain, shows coins on a table – an image that has nothing to do with the life of the saint. Netzel explained that apparently when the Jesuit who designed it submitted the sketch of the window to the father superior for approval, he jokingly drew the coins on the table as a reminder to make the payment for the windows. They were not supposed to be in the final draft but were never removed, and are now permanently set in glass.
In recent years they began noticing some pieces of glass were broken in many of the windows and other pieces were bulging, that solder joints were broken and rot was occurring in the wooden frames of the windows, Netzel said. Pickering noted that the windows weren’t sealed in when first installed, creating pockets for water to sit in, which has caused many problems.
It would have been too costly to remove and ship out the windows for restoration, so Associated Crafts was hired to restore them in place – a four-man project costing about $100,000. A Stained Glass Window Restoration Project fundraising effort is underway at Mount St. Michael, and Netzel reports that with each window’s restoration costing about $12,500, four of the windows have been totally underwritten by donors from within the parish and from gifts from people in the community and from other states.
The 131 students at the school have started their own Pennies for Panes drive and are seeking to fund a portion of the St. Peter Canisius window. This saint is portrayed with books and teaching young children, which is why the students chose that window, Netzel said. So far they have raised $1,100.
The project also is replacing the frosted exterior storm windows with clear acrylic Plexiglas, which will allow more light through. And light is what it is about – symbolically and literally.
Light shining through colored glass makes stained glass – at Mount St. Michael and at religious institutions everywhere – so beautiful and so important for those who appreciate the artistry and expressions of faith that they represent.