Tonight there was a rehearsal for a wedding in the Sanctuary, and therefore much hustling and bustling and hullabaloo, and I was on my feet a lot, between cleaning the rest of the church and helping the wedding folks as needed.
Towards the end of the evening, as I closed up that end of the building and switched off the final light, I paused and looked to the cross at the front of the Sanctuary, and not for the first time, caught my breath. The sun had dipped below the horizon, yet the sky was still alight with a deep indigo refulgence. This bluest of lights shone through the magnificent stained glass display surrounding the cross and filled the darkened holy place with every color, and I was alone in the midst of purest effulgence.
I thank you, Father, for stained glass. I thank you for the miracle of light, for refraction, for men who discovered how to break and bend light to reveal its colors, or to filter it through colored glass for no other purpose than loveliness. I thank you that of all the creatures in this world, men alone pursue beauty, value it, and think to create something so impractical as stained glass. I thank you for moments of serenity. I thank you for the beautiful Sanctuaries of the world, places made by men's hands for the Divine.
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