About Stained Glass

St. Alice (or Aleydis) was born at Shaerbeck in Belgium in the year 1204. At the young age of seven she entered a Cistercian convent where she remained until her death. Alice was known for her spirit of humility even through great suffering in which she was afflicted with the disease of leprosy. For this […]

St. Vitus was a Christian saint from Sicily who was martyred during the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperors Diocletian and Maximian in 303 AD. In the Catholic Church St. Vitus is considered one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. St. Vitus’s Feast day is celebrated on June 15th and in the Middle Ages the […]

St. Alice (or Aleydis) was born at Shaerbeck in Belgium in the year 1204. At the young age of seven she entered a Cistercian convent where she remained until her death. Alice was known for her spirit of humility even through great suffering in which she was afflicted with the disease of leprosy. For this […]

St. Anthony of Padua is often depicted in stained glass with a book and the infant Child Jesus. He lived from 1195 to 1231, and was born in Portugal but worked in Italy. He joined the Franciscan Order after being deeply impacted by the death of five Franciscan martyrs. He is a much loved and […]

Barnabas was a Jew born in Cyprus and was originally named Joseph. He became one of the early Christians and was renamed by the disciples who called him Barnabas, meaning Son of Encouragement. He was instrumental in persuading the Christian community to accept St. Paul, their former persecutor, after his conversion. Barnabas and Paul made […]

St. Norbert of Xanten, or Norbert Gennep, was born in the late eleventh century in Germany. Being the son of a count, young Norbert was given a position at court, and lived a life of nobility. One day when riding through a forest there was a huge thunderstorm in which Norbert was thrown from his […]

St Charles Lwanga (or Karoli Lwanga) was born in Uganda in the nineteenth century. He was converted to the Catholic faith, and is now revered as a saint and martyr by both Catholic and Anglican churches. As a young man, Charles worked in the court of the cruel King Mwanga II. This king was determined […]

St. Augustine was an Italian-born during the sixth century AD. He was a Benedictine monk and the prior of a monastery in Rome. In 595 AD, Pope Gregory the Great chose Augustine to lead a mission to Britain to evangelize King Ethelberht and his Kingdom of Kent. This mission was called the Gregorian Mission. When […]

In 1515 Philip Neri was born in Florence to a noble Italian family. He received his early education from Dominican friars and at the age of eighteen he experienced a religious conversion. He went to live in Rome and began a life of ministering to the sick, the poor and prostitutes. Later in his life […]

At an early age, St. Rita begged her Italian parents to let her enter a convent. But instead they arranged a marriage for her to a violent and abusive man. She had her first child at the age of twelve. Throughout the almost twenty years of her difficult marriage, Rita retained her devout Christian values […]