This church was built in 1926 as a Byzantine Catholic Church. As would be expected in an Eastern Rite church, the sanctuary faces the east. It is on this eastern wall that this stained-glass window serves as an entry point for the sunlight to filter into our space.

Interpreting the east as the direction by which heaven exists has long been a part of the tradition of the Church. We find the seeds of it in the Book of Genesis (2:8), where it is recorded that God planted the Garden of Eden (paradise) in the east.  In the Gospel of Matthew (24), we find Jesus telling the disciples that when the end times are upon us, there will be war, false prophets, and many calamities, but from this chaos, the Second Coming of Christ will emerge from the east (24:27) when the Heavenly Jerusalem will manifest built from precious metals and gemstones imbued with heavenly choirs and Living Light.

It seemed most appropriate to us to include the vision of the Fallen Stars (Scivias III.1) on this wall because it captures the essence of Hildegard’s apocalyptic vision of the endtime battle (the celestial battle that will unfold with the fallen angels as well as the terrestrial battle here on earth) revealing our faith in the power of the Living Light to overcome evil and darkness.

In Hildegard’s last theological work, The Book of Divine Works, she wrote the following:

“And again, I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: After the army of lost angels fell, God ordained humankind for the glory they had lost. But because humankind also slipped to ruin, God redeemed them with the great price of his blessed arrest…” (359)

“For humankind is indeed the work of almighty God’s right hand… and they will fill up the choirs of lost angels; for this reason, they also stand under the defense of the good angels…” (375)

“In such a way the hidden divinity, which is wholly just and can be seen perfectly by none except insor far as it designs to reveal itself, explains itself to the angel who remained in the heavens without falling…(376)

Taking into consideration an understanding Hildegard’s vision of the Fallen Stars in the context of her wider theological worldview (as we have seen it develop in her last work, Book of Divine Works), we chose install a wooden cross over our eastern sanctuary window. It serves as a reminder that while both angels and human beings have fallen into the darkness of sin, the Light of the Cross illuminates the path back to God. We have  been given a choice to turn our gaze back to the east, towards paradise. When the sunlight permeates our sanctuary window, it reminds us that we are created from God’s Living Light.

Over the years, as the building has gone through a number of transformations, this unique sanctuary window has remained a steadfast portal allowing us a glimpse into the heavenly realm.

In December 2022, one of our founding Community of St. Hildegard members, David Rininger, took on the arduous task of cross-stitching this window. Upon completing it, he commissioned Rick Sterringer to create a star-studded frame from metal. The result is an extraordinary piece of art that sits in our sanctuary to the right of the actual window.