Angels in Festal Garb
The Windows of Our Lady of Loreto Parish
(to be installed in Spring, 2014)
~~~~~~~~~
The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, obedient to his
spoken word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will.
Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
(Ps. 103:19-22)
~~~~~
In conspectu angelorum psallam tibi, Domine.
I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the angels I will sing your praise.”
(Ps. 138:1)
~~~~~
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the
firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the
righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the
sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
(Heb. 12:22-24)
~~~~~
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
(From God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins)
The Our Lady of Loreto parish church is designed to represent the church which Jesus
founded, that is, his bride—the bride of the Lamb of God. The parish worships the
Lamb, whose image is presented in the central eastern window of its dome. Opposite
the Lamb’s window, set to the northwest, is the celestial Denver window, looking out
and over the vast metropolis that is nestled snuggly at the foothills and its backdrop
Rocky Mountains. The window of the celestial Denver presents the Church of Denver
coming forth from the window, as gushing springtime runoff, to meet her bridegroom,
the Lamb. In between these two windows, flanking the Lamb’s throne, lining the
church’s walls, and connecting the windows of the divine bridegroom and the celestial
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Denver are set ten clerestory (upper) windows. These portray God’s nine ranks of
angels and one window dedicated to the Prince of Angels, St. Michael.
The choice was made to represent the nine ranks of angels and St. Michael because of
their role in the church and in salvation history. St. John Chrysostom teaches: "For if
the very air is filled with angels, how much more so the Church! And if the Church is
filled with angels, how much more is that true today when their Lord has risen into
heaven!" (Serm. asc., 1). It is in the presence of angels that the church—that Our Lady
of Loreto Parish—sings the praises of God and worships the Lamb most high. At Jesus’
coming as man, born of the Virgin Mary, the angels sing to men and women of the glory
of the Lord incarnate (see Lk. 2:13-14). At the coming of the Lord in the Eucharist, at
Mass, we are graced to sing with the seraphim, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of
hosts!...All the earth is filled with his glory” (Is. 6:3).
As the angels preside over Baptism, so they are equally present at every
Christian assembly. ‘On the question of the angels, the following is a
necessary conclusion: If the angel of the Lord shall encamp round about
them that fear Him, and shall deliver them; and if what Jacob says is true
not only in his own care but also in the case of all those who are dedicated
to the omniscient God, when he speaks of the angel that delivereth me
from all evils: then it is probably that, when many are assembled
legitimately for the glory of Christ, the angel of each encamps round reach
of them that feat God, and that he stands at the side of the man whose
protection and guidance has been entrusted to him. Thus, when the
saints are assembled together, there is a twofold Church present, that of
men and that of angels’ (Origen, Hom in Jos., 20.1)” (Danilou, p. 67).
Symbolism
Angels, being superior beings to all visible creatures, what they are by nature cannot be
known to us. We really don’t even have a proper word with which to name them. St.
Augustine says: “Angel is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the
name of their nature, it is ‘spirit;’ if you seek the name of their office, it is ‘angel:’ from
what they are, ‘spirit,’ from what they do, ‘angel’” (See Catechism of the Catholic Church
[CCC] 329). They “do his bidding…obedient to his spoken word,” as the psalmist sings
(Ps. 103). Moreover, mysteriously, each angel in and of itself is its own species, yet
angels are united together in ranks according to the service they render, whether at
God’s throne in heaven or at man’s thrones on earth, that is, in service of the human
person and of the nations. The Letter to the Hebrews reveals that angels are “all
ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation”
(1:14). And so we can say that in their being, as spirit, they are created for God himself;
in their work as angels they labor without end on behalf of the salvation of man.
Nonetheless, the Loreto angel windows were designed to be faithful to what the
Christian scriptures and the tradition of the Church reveal to us about angels. For
example, the Letter to the Hebrews reveals: Of the angels he says, “He makes his
angels winds, and his servants flames of fire” (1:7).
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In particular guiding the design of the Our Lady of Loreto windows was the teaching of
Pseudo Dionysius and St. Thomas Aquinas.
Pseudo Dionysius taught regarding the most appropriate symbolism and imagery to be
used to represent the angels. He said: “The Word of God prefers the sacred description
of fire, in preference to almost every other, attribut[ing] the characteristic and energy of
fire to them, and throughout, above and below, it prefers pre-eminently the
representation by the image of fire.” Indeed, he continues, “the Godly-wise…depict the
celestial beings from fire, showing their Godlikeness, and imitation of God, as far as
attainable.” Specifically, Dionysius teaches, all of the properties of fire can be said to
speak of the angels, including, but certainly not limited to energy, heat and warmth, light
and illumination, the capacity to consume.
In addition to fire Dionysius continued that wind was a revealed and preferred way in
which God himself sought that his celestial creatures should be understood. There are
other images in the Scriptures, too, of course, although for Pseudo Dionysius these
were lesser manners of representing celestial beings. These included clouds, brass,
electron (a mixture of gold and silver), and many colored stones. Pseudo Dionysius
also included in his list of symbols specific human body parts, especially those
associated with the senses. Last of all Pseudo Dionysius mentions the vestiture of
kings and queens and that of and the armament of soldiers prepared for battle. And, in
some sense Pseudo Dionysius warned of not using the human body or the human
figure to represent and symbolize the angels, averring that to do so was undignified of
either—angels or humans—and thus to the creator of both.
Design Choices
Here therein, then, lie the design-challenge before the parish. How best to represent
and symbolize the angels according to the teaching of the scriptures and tradition of the
church, while at the same time acknowledging that universally everyone has come to
expect that in art, religious or otherwise, angels be represented by the one thing that
Pseudo Dionysius, and Thomas Aquinas along with him, taught should not be used to
represent them, namely, the human form, the human body, not to mention wings. Yet,
how, on the other hand, to best symbolize the angels as fire and energy and heat and
light, wind, electron, and many colored stones. To be as faithful as possible to the
Scriptures and the teaching tradition of the church, therefore, certain design principles
were established.
1.
2.
Any specific scriptural revelation regarding any rank of angel or individual angel
was to be respected and incorporated into the design as much as possible. This
was especially true of Heb. 12:21, which speaks of “innumerable angels in festal
gathering.”
The symbols of fire, and specifically the energy and heat of fire, multi-colored
light, and wind were to be used almost exclusively in the design of all ten
windows.
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3.
The use of wings to suggest wind and heavenly creatures, that is, creatures not
bound to earth, may be used as a means of engaging the viewer of the windows
into their meaning and teaching.
4.
The use of the human form was specifically excluded excepting the two angels
who most immediately serve the human person, namely, the (guardian) angels
and St. Michael the Archangel.
5.
Elements from outside the Judaic-Christian tradition may be used if they served
to increase understanding of any individual rank of angels.
Placement of the angels according to rank
In the scriptures and tradition of the church, the angels are ranked by God according to
two criteria. On one hand, God ranks the angels according to their nearness to his
throne or their nearness to his creatures on earth, that is to the human person
individually or gathered together in the church or in nations. On the other hand, God
ranks his angels according to the mission they carry out, the work he assigns to each of
his ranks and to all of its members therein. Thus, the angels closest to God and in his
direct service are the seraphim and dominions, then the cherubim and powers, followed
by virtues and thrones, principalities and archangels, and finally the angels. Thus the
seraphim are the closest to God yet the furthest from man; yet the angels are closest to
man, being indeed those who carry to us the most previous of God’s messages on our
behalf and being our guardians by day and by night, while being the furthest from God.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the ranks of angels are divided into three spheres. It
is almost as if they form three ripples of water from the center to the shore. The first
sphere of angels is that of God’s heavenly counselors. They contemplate God in and of
himself. They consider God as the end of the whole of creation. According to Pseudo
Dionysius, this first rank “encircle(s) and stand(s) immediately around God; and without
symbol and without interruption, dances round His eternal knowledge in the most evermoving stability” (PD 7: IV). The three Loreto windows of the rank of the heavenly
counselors: seraphim, cherubim, and thrones (to the right, south of the Lamb window)
are of the formless form of dance. The second sphere emanating out from the Lamb’s
throne is that of God’s heavenly governors. They contemplate God’s judgment in
universal causes, what is to be done according to the justice of the divine being and will.
The angels of this rank are the dominions, powers, and virtues, seen in the church to
the left (north). Finally, the third sphere constitutes the rank of the heavenly
messengers and soldiers of God, namely the principalities, archangels, and angels.
They contemplate God’s will as it is carried out in his salvation and redemption of the
world. They carry out the work to be done to achieve the end of God’s justice, which is
mercy, “in order that,” as Pseudo Dionysius teaches, “[man’s] elevation, conversion, and
communion, and union with God may be in due order” (PD). In this rank are to be found
the principalities, archangels, and angels. (The principalities and angel windows are the
two western-most windows on the south side of the church, to the right of the central
window; the archangel window is the second-to-last window on the opposite wall.)
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Seraphim
The word seraphim means “the
burning ones;” it denotes an excess
of charity. According to Pseudo
Dionysius, the designation seraphim
really teaches this: “a perennial
circling around the divine things,
penetrating warmth, the overflowing
heat of a movement which never
falters and never fails, a capacity to
stamp their own image on
subordinates by arousing and
uplifting in them a like flame, the
same warmth. It means also the
power to purify by means of the
lightning flash and the flame. It
means the ability to hold unveiled
and undiminished both the light they
have and the illumination they give
out. It means the capacity to push
aside and to do away with every
obscuring shadow."
Aquinas teaches that the
© Scott Parsons
seraphim “excel in what is the
supreme excellence of all, in being united to God himself.” They are the six-winged
angels of Isaiah 6:2 and Revelation 4:8 who are continually praising God with the socalled Trisaigon or “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It is with the seraphim and in this song which we
are privileged to join as we prepare for Christ at the Eucharist to come to us in the form
of bread and wine. The seraphim burn eternally from love and zeal for God and it is
said of them that such bright light emanates from them that nothing, not even other
angels, can look upon them, yet they themselves hide their eyes from God lest looking
upon him they be consumed by the fire of his love. Their movement, as that of fire, is
always upwards and continuous. Their active force is not simply fire but specifically
heat, rousing all others to fervor and cleansing them by the same.
In the Loreto windows the seraphim, who are closest to the Lord’s throne, are
portrayed with colors of royalty, namely dominant golds and purples. (The purples, too,
pick up and carry to the throne of God the purple of the cross of Jesus which hangs
over the church’s main altar and frames its main aisle and narthex carpets.) Being they
who most perfectly glorify God’s majestic divinity, share his knowledge, and illuminate
his being of love, the seraphim are symbolized not by any one specific celestial body
but by the primum mobile itself, that is, that something which acted without first being
acted upon. This window more than any of the other nine is the one most decidedly
designed to represent fire and flame.
In celestial symbolism, the seraphim are represented by the primum mobil, the
first mover.
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Cherubim
The cherubim, whose
name means “fullness of
knowledge,” are the
heavenly beings who
“know the divine secrets
superemminently”
(Aquinas). To them is
given the perfect vision
of God, full reception of
divine light, and
contemplation of the
beauty of God’s divine
order. Possessing this
knowledge they do not
keep it to themselves but
pour it forth copiously
upon others. In the
scriptures the prophet
Ezekiel envisions the
cherubim as having four
faces (that of a man, a
lion, an ox, and an eagle)
and four wings. It was
the cherubim whom God
commanded to exile man
from the Garden of Eden
because man thought
himself to have the mind
© Scott Parsons
of a god (see Ez. 28:6;
13; 16) and whom after Adam’s exile God set in the Garden of Eden to guard the way to
the tree of life (Gen. 3:24).
The cherubim are symbolized by the stars. Each star, as we know, is itself the
center of its own solar system whose light reaches us almost as if from eternity, from
realms and distances unreachable and incomprehensible both to the naked eye and to
the peerings of all objects which man has made and set himself in the heavens. In the
Loreto window the cherubim are portrayed as if defensive to their right, that is, away
from the Lamb’s throne, protecting the tree of life lest Adam attempt from his exile to
return and to eat. The cherubim’s defense seems to project forth as if defending yet at
the same tine moves forth as if projecting, and this from two objects symbolizing the
divinity and the incarnation: a purple triangle, symbol of the royal Trinity, the lower half
of which constitutes part of the upper thigh of the cherubim’s left leg and which too
forms the lower part of a reddened heart, a symbol of the incarnation of Christ.
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Thrones
Thrones, according to
Aquinas, possess an
“immediate knowledge
of the types of the divine
works.” They “are
raised up so as to be
the familiar recipients of
God in themselves.”
They are the first of the
highest rank of angels
to receive God so as to
bear him to others in the
lower ranks. “Because
the seat received him
who sits thereon, and
he can be carried
thereupon; and so the
angels receive God in
themselves, and in a
certain way bear Him to
the inferior creatures,”
Aquinas teaches. The
seat of a throne is
raised above the
ground; no king or
queen sits on the
ground. And so thrones
are raised up to the
© Scott Parsons
immediate knowledge of
God. And because in its shape a throne is open on one side to receive the sitter, thus
are the thrones promptly open to receive God and to serve Him.
Thrones are symbolized in art by the planet Saturn, and the chemical properties
of lead speak of their nature. In the Loreto window of the thrones, Saturn can be seen
set in the upper portion of the window, set between various constellations, Virgo being
the most prominent of the constellations in the thrones window. The Blessed Virgin
Mary was born under the constellation Virgo. The artist wanted, too, to pay his respect
to the pastor, Monsignor Edward Buelt, who commissioned the windows and who, too,
was born on September 8.
Being thrones, this rank of angels is the rank that represents where form begins.
Too, they are symbolized by eyes, the organ of the human body which receives light
and transforms it into thought, giving form to truth. Jesus proclaimed, "The eye is the
lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if
your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness: (Mt. 6:22-23).
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Dominions
To the
angelic
dominions is
ascribed
“lordship.”
They are the
first rank of
heavenly
beings who,
receiving the
will of God
from the
thrones in
turn “appoint
those things
which are to
be done”
(Aquinas);
they,
therefore,
govern the
lower ranks
of angels.
Pseudo
Dionysius
says of them
that if it could
be said of
any of the
angels it
can be said
of the
dominions
© Scott Parsons
that they
most closely resemble the divinely beautiful human being, that is, the human being,
whose created beauty reflects the uncreated beauty of the divinity.
In the Loreto windows, the dominion angel is portrayed almost as if having a
spine, through which the thoughts of the mind and the desires of the heart is transmitted
into action and which accords capacity of human beings to have shape and form, both
moral and physical. (The backbone or spine is often referred to when speaking of
courage, integrity, etc.) The wing-like quality of the angel resolves itself as if the being
is hovering, protecting, not lording it over.
In celestial symbolism the dominions are symbolized by the planet Jupiter.
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Virtues
Below the rank
of dominions is
that of virtues,
dunamis in
Greek, from
which we
derive our
English words
dynamism,
dynamic,
dynamo, and
the like.
These are the
angels to
whom God
gives the
power of
carrying out
what is to be
done; they
bear the
excellence of
strength of
mind since
they undertake
freely the
divine
commands
(Aquinas).
According to
Pseudo
Dionysius,
virtues
© Scott Parsons
denotes a
certain courageous and unflinching virility.” The virtues, “for all those Godlike energies
within them…[are] vigorously conducted to the divine imitation, not forsaking the
Godlike movement through its own unmanliness, but unflinchingly looking to the superessential and power-making power, and becoming a power-like image of this, as far as
is attainable, and powerfully turn to this, as Source of Power, and issuing forth to those
next in degree, in gift of power, and in likeness to God.” It is the virtues through whom
God’s miracles are wrought since to them has been given power over corporeal nature.
Virtues are symbolized by the planet Mars, and so the color of iron—red—
dominates the window.
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Powers
If the virtues bear
to us the
commands of
God and aid in
setting our minds
on things above,
the powers help
us “to order how
what has been
commanded or
decided to be
done can be
carried out”
(Aquinas). If the
virtues can be
said to bear the
strength of God,
the powers can
be said to bear
his authority.
Virtues, according
to Pseudo
Dionysius,
“denotes the
beautiful and
unconfused good
order, with regard
to the divine
receptions, and
the discipline of
the super© Scott Parsons
mundane and
intellectual authority, not using the authoritative powers imperiously for base purposes,
but conducted…towards divine things, and conducting those after it benignly, and
assimilated, as far as permissible, to the Authoritative Source of authority…” And
“whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed” (Rom. 13:2).
But of what does their authority consist? First, powers are the bearers of
conscience. As such their authority is the divine authority of guilt. Guilt is not imposed
or inflicted from without. To the contrary it rises from within the person, and it is the
powers’ great gift to convict one of a guilty conscience. That is, they proclaim to us
before we sin, while we are sinning, and after we have sinned that we have in fact
sinned against the cross of Christ. Second, powers are the keepers of history. As
such, they are the keepers and teachers of salvation history, of God’s salvific acts on
behalf of men and through the church. They are the angelic beings who urge the
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keeping of the terms of the covenants which God has made with nature, human beings,
and the church. It is the powers who bear the teachings of God’s Holy Spirit, the
Paraclete “whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind
you of all that I have said to you” (Jn. 14:26). Conversely, it is the powers who bear
man’s good deeds to God. “For God is not unjust; he will not overlook your work and
the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. And we want
each one of you to show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope
to the very end, so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who
through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:10-12).
In the Loreto window of the powers, dynamic tension can be had between a
birdlike figure, wings extended to the left and to the right, tail forcing itself downward as
if leverage or a counterweight, which seem to be pushing against weight unseen.
Above that weight the nebulous figure of a man seeks, yes, to help but especially to
welcome. From the straining shards of blue, almost as if stone, appear to be breaking
forth, upwardly tending even to an arch of amber gold similar to the arch in the central
window of the Lamb of God. Pseudo Dionysius says of the powers that they are always
“mounting upwards in fullness of power to an assimilation with God.” Here that
mounting upwards, that assimilation resolves as a single triangular shard of white glass,
penetrating upward.
A favorite painting of the pastor (Buelt) is that of the Last Judgment painted by
Fra Angelico and found in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy. In that painting angels
are urging humans up a mountain to bear a cross, the cross of Christ. Miniature in size
and overwhelmed by the sheer size of the cross, they resist giving themselves over to
failure before even trying. Those who resist are swallowed up by the evil one, literally, a
great monster of horrendous image. But those who try, even beyond the possibility of
success, find themselves having to bear a cross that it itself from on high borne by
angels. These angels are virtues, it seems. They teach us that in freely undertaking
the divine commands, in our own excellent strength of mind, we will discover our cross
borne by angels and the true glass ceiling—between heaven and earth, life and death—
to be shattered. The powers are the angels who help us, “having been raised with
Christ, [to] seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of
God” (Col. 3:1).
Powers are often symbolized by the sun, the source of all energy in the solar
system.
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Principalities
The angels called
principalities are those “who
lead in sacred order”
(Pseudo Dionysius) since
“those who lead others,
being first among them, are
properly called ‘princes,’
according to the words,
‘Princes went before joined
with singers’ (Ps. 67:26)”
(Aquinas). The
principalities, then, are the
“generals and officers” in the
work of announcing divine
things. God entrusts to
them the lead in ordering all
things according to the
sacred, that is, “leading
others in princely fashion,
and being molded, as far as
possible, to the princemaking Princedom itself”
(Pseudo Dionysius). For
this reason, most aptly,
therefore, the principalities
inspire human beings to
both art and science, that is,
© Scott Parsons
to what is beautiful and true.
Moreover, the Lord has assigned one of the principalities to guard and order
each of the world’s earthly nations. According to Pseudo Dionysius, they “religiously
direct each nation [and] conduct those who follow them toward the one single universal
principle, the one Head of all." In the parable of the Last Judgment, Jesus revealed that
not simply individuals but nations, indeed all the nations precisely as such will be
gathered before the Lord to account for whatsoever they did to the least of his brothers
and sisters (Mt. 25:31ff). It is they, the principalities, being the angels who order all
things to Christ, who will carry out the Lord’s command to gather the nations before him.
The Loreto window of the same (the fourth window from the Lamb window on the
right [south] side of the church) is dominated by the colors of red, white, and blue. The
figure illuminated from behind—the wings of the angel—assumes also the form almost
of an eagle. The white of the window, however, is a white gold, a light penetrating from
behind the angel/eagle form. In the American flag and the nation’s great seal, the color
white symbolizes innocence and purity. The windows golden white light convicts us that
innocence is only pure if it be the innocence and purity revealed from above, from God,
and not determined from below, from man.
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Archangels
The
archangels are
a most
mysterious
rank. Aquinas
says of them
simply that
they are “those
who hold the
middle place
(between
Principalities
and Angels).”
Pseudo
Dionysius says
of them that
they are
“’angel
princes’”
insofar as they
are princes
over angels
yet angels
under
Principalities.”
To the
archangels is
assigned the
all-important
salvific tasks of
announcing to
men the great
© Scott Parsons
mysteries of
salvation, mysteries human reason cannot grasp. Thus the archangel Gabriel was sent
to a virgin of Nazareth to announce the Incarnation (Lk. 1:26). They appear at the
empty tomb of Jesus to announce the Resurrection and make sense of the puzzlement
of the women (Lk. 24:4). And they proclaim to the apostles at the Lord’s Ascension that
he will return again” (Acts 1:11).
Archangels find their planetary expression in the planet Mercury.
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Angels
At the lowest
rank of the
celestial
beings are the
angels. It is
from the
angels,
however, from
whom the
whole cohort
of the
heavenly
spirits takes
its name: the
word “angels”
meaning
“messengers.”
They are,
according to
Pseudo
Dionysius,
“more properly
named Angels
by us than
those [even]
of higher
degree,
because their
hierarchy is
occupied with
the more
manifest, and
is more
© Scott Parsons
particularly
concerned with things of the world.” According to Aquinas, as archangels announce to
us the things beyond our human reason to comprehend, angels instead announce to us
things us immediately graspable by our own human reason.
Angels are enigmatic beings. Jesus revealed that they “continually see the face
of my Father in heaven” (Mt. 18:10). Yet God has set them furthest from his throne.
Furthest from God’s throne they are closest to and serving most intimately the realm of
men, of his sons and daughters. So how can it be that furthest from God nonetheless
they constantly behold his very face and yet closest to men they are turned toward, they
face always the human race? In the Letter to the Hebrews, we are invited to “look to
Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (12:2). The Greek word which the author
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uses is aphrōntes, meaning simultaneously, that is, at one and the same time, to look in
two completely opposite directions (Quite a feat at that!). The guardian angels are able
to accomplish and carry out this seemingly impossible task on our behalf. “One thing I
asked of the Lord,” the psalmist sings, “that will I seek after: to live in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his
temple” (27:4). Each and every guardian angels gazes on the Father’s face that the
one to whom each has been assigned might do likewise, might see what they see and
love what they love. They guard us that we may not turn from the Lord’s gaze to sin
and turn from sin to the Lord’s gaze. They look to what we desire to look so as to see
what it has been revealed to us to behold, the very face of God.
In the Loreto windows, three predominant symbols speak of relationship of the
guardian angels to us and their role in our salvation. These angels are symbolized by
the moon, a sliver moon, rising over the horizon, the moon being the closest of all
celestial orbs to earth and which daily encircles it in its orbit. Moreover, the image of the
angel portrayed in this window is most familiar to us, being taken from our popular piety:
it is most preferred among parents and can be found everywhere in our cemeteries, set
upon tombstones of children, as if presiding over their suffering, death, and burial. To
the angel’s back, the angel turned from the earthly to the divine, is placed an image of
the dried seeds of a native Colorado grass. The grass chosen to represent the State of
Colorado—a cool, tall presence in the prairies—is eryngium yuccifolium, or rattlesnake
master. The angel seems to be shielding the native grass, which even as it dries and
dies yet produces the seeds of its spring rebirth, from the moon’s night light. The
moon’s light penetrates through the angel’s gaze and illuminates it with the same white
light which it—the moon—reflects reflects, not its own light but the true light of the sun
shining above.
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St. Michael the Archangel
The last window is dedicated
to the archangel Michael.
The scriptures reveal
Michael to be “the great
prince, guardian of [God’s]
people (Dan. 12:1). He
stands as “a reinforcement
and a bulwark” (Dan. 10:21).
In the New Testament
Daniel is seen to be arguing
with and rebuking the devil
(Jude 9) and defeats him in
the final battle between good
and evil, the victor’s prize of
which is the human race, the
sons and daughters of God
(Rev. 12:7ff).
In the Loreto window
Michael is depicted facing
west, that is, to the defense
of the heavenly church of
Denver and in offense
against the secular forces of
the world. The anger of the
dragon, against whom
Michael fights and from
© Scott Parsons
whose fiery wrath he
protects the church (of Denver and the universal church) is set as if a consuming rage
around him and on all sides. His wings, though, catch and reflect the white light of the
moon (the same moon which rises on the horizon in the guardian angels window on the
opposite wall). The moon symbolizes the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose light shines at
night, that is, in the darkness of evil, but which itself only reflects the true light of the
sun, that is, of the Son of God and her Son. Michael’s sword unsheathed he protects
the church by penetrating the heart of the dragon.
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