Beauty Shines Through: A Stained Glass Story
For over forty years, the little white church building of St. Mark’s Anglican Church has stood tucked on the corner of Webb and Laird streets in Loomis, California. The small building, established in 1981 and lovingly cared for by the church community, already has a number of stained-glass panels throughout the nave and entrance. But a new panel, still in its design stages, will soon adorn the space.
A Matter of Matter
The stained-glass window is the latest in a number of developments for the parish in the past few years, including the calling of its first full-time rector, Father Brandon LeTourneau. Under Father Brandon’s leadership, the parish has undergone other projects to beautify its worship space and intentionally move toward a more historically Anglican aesthetic. Projects of beautification are everywhere you look in St. Mark’s, from a fresh coat of paint on the nursery walls to newly stained woodcuts above the entrance to pew-end torches lit for the first time on All Souls. Most of the projects are cooperative efforts by parishioners offering up their own time and skills.
Sponsored
One such example is an altar, rebuilt to turn the page on an old disagreement that resulted in damage to the prior table. The new altar is both the result and symbol of parish unity. Different individuals contributed their skills and resources to create it: a parishioner gifted in woodwork constructed and stained it, another painted and gilded heraldry to adorn its frontispiece, and the community helped fund and install it. It’s a modern example of a monument of love, historically created by worshiping communities by relying on one another and pooling their abilities together.
The Beauty of Holiness
Why all these projects? Scripture calls Christians to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 96:9). In his priestly formation, Father Brandon found that all Anglican writers have something to say about aesthetics across the spectrum of churchmanship. Whether coming from a high or low church context, we all worship the God who became incarnate in the material world. As Saint John of Damascus argued in the 8th century, because God utilized matter in the incarnation to bring forth our salvation, he therefore invites —even compels—Christians to create and pursue material beauty in our worship.
Stained-Glass Stories Old and New
[T]he eye is the most active and receptive of all our senses, the organ by which to best make a deep and lasting impression.
Richard Hooker
For all the skill and craftsmanship concentrated in the St. Mark’s community, none of them is a stained glass artist. So why endeavor to design and install a new panel? The answer involves that same commitment to developing beautiful Anglican elements and to St. Mark’s unique and sometimes quirky history.
The building’s existing stained-glass panels and how they came about have been somewhat of a sore spot in that history. Though they add pretty color to the worship space, some of the panels are artistically rather rudimentary—owing to the fact that they derive from the pages of a children’s coloring book. Another panel was designed and installed without any knowledge or input outside the lone clergyman ministering at the time (although the church still paid the sizeable sum). Unfortunately, the design was produced exactly as he had sent it, with pencil marks and all. A panel from the church’s early years became controversial in the church and town for its visual depiction of God the Father standing beside Jesus with a blurry face. With this head-scratching history, enlisting the input of the parish and the talents of an experienced artist became necessary to bring healing and beauty.
Envisioning the New Window
So, in July of 2024, the church announced the project. Father Brandon reached out to Rev. Mark Bleakley, a priest in the REC and accomplished stained-glass artist. You can find his award-winning work in churches throughout the country, his windows numbering in the hundreds. Together, the parish determined they wanted their new window to represent both the ancient Christian tradition and the community God has called them to serve. They set a fundraising goal and displayed a “vision board” of sorts to illustrate how the different elements might be featured.
The window centers on their patron saint, Mark the Evangelist. The local elements include golden poppies to represent California, mandarins for Placer County, and eggplants for Loomis. With time to give the whole church family a voice in how it looks, the first color study was released in October. See if you can spot the playful addition of a blue goose, a nod to a favorite Loomis landmark.
This marriage of local identity and broader Anglican tradition makes this project so much more than just a beautiful work of art. If stained glass windows are a medium for visual storytelling, this window will tell the story of a particular community of the universal church coming together to heal, grow, and worship in the light of God’s love.
Beauty is Actually Easy
People give our Lord such shoddy, cheap things, and ‘left overs’ for which they have no use. I am going to give Him all the best and most beautiful things I can.
Dorothy Kerin, 20th-century Anglican mystic
I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.
David (2 Samuel 24:24b)
All these efforts in the parish of St. Mark’s stem from a conviction that worshiping God means bringing to him the best we have to offer. Even in different contexts (perhaps your parish does not have a questionably eclectic collection of stained glass?), this conviction is all you need as a starting point to bring more beauty into your worship space and community.
Working within that broad spectrum of Anglican churchmanship, there is room for local expression of traditional staples. What is important to remember is that the way we worship reflects and reaffirms what we believe. We believe in a God who became flesh and dwelt among us to invite us into divine life. How can your parish or community express and celebrate that, bringing your best offerings of skill, artistry, beauty, and cooperation? When the people of God are willing to pursue such an endeavor according to their resources, the result can be lovely.
While bringing our best to this effort is fitting, we shouldn’t make it complicated or unattainable. “Beauty is actually very easy,” says Father Brandon. It is not a matter of affluence reserved only for privileged parishes with abundant financial resources. Even something as simple as sweeping the floors is an act of care and provision that can improve a space and prepare it for worship.
Beautify What is Necessary
Father Brandon teaches that Anglicans beautify what is necessary. Even for those who worship in borrowed space or have limited resources, it is within every church family’s ability to begin with the elements of the service that you already use. Do you have pews? make them beautiful. An altar? Make it beautiful. Candles, linens, vestments—start by identifying one thing that is within your control and think of how it can be improved or adorned to the glory of God. And beauty is certainly not limited to physical objects. Can your worship space sound better? Try chanting the Psalms. To bring in the sense of smell, could you make use of incense?
Anglican Ways of Beautifying
Picking a project of this type is an excellent way to gain a deeper understanding of Anglican history, tradition, and witness. There are Anglican ways of beautifying. The Parson’s Handbook, written by Rev. Percy Dearmer in 1899, (available online here) is full of practical and specific instructions for a parish to align more closely to historically Anglican furnishings, vestments, colors, etc. While his rhetoric may be at times a bit inflated and specific to his historical context, Dearmer’s notes are nevertheless a fascinating and educational introduction to a number of Anglican practices that parishes in the ACNA may not be familiar with. Just as St. Mark’s stained-glass window will bring together a classic design and medium with meaningfully local elements, so can any prayerful and intentional project combine the beauty of ancient Christian worship, which spans generations, with the embodied context of the local parish today.
Know your own community: its history, its people, its resources, its hopes.
Know Anglicanism.
Beautify what is necessary. All to the glory of God.
For updates on St. Mark’s stained-glass window project, visit their Facebook page here. You can donate here, indicating “Stained Glass” in the memo if you would like to contribute to the project fundraiser.
Cover image from the window design by the Rev. Mark Bleakley.
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