Stained Glass Window Installation
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A highlight of our 25th Anniversary celebration in 2025 is the addition of new stained-glass windows to our beautiful church. Shortly before his retirement from Saint Elizabeth Parish, Father Mullin shared with the parish councils the exciting news that our beautiful church would be receiving additional stained-glass windows. The windows are designed by the Joseph Beyer Studio who designed the original windows in our church.
Specifically, the new windows include two returns which complete the stained-glass design in the sanctuary area. Also, the main body of the church includes the addition of four windows depicting American Saints (John Neumann, Katharine Drexel, Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Kateri Tekakwitha) along the Route 100 side of the church. These new additions were intended at the time of the church building’s original design.
It was Father Mullin’s hope that the new windows would be complete in time for the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the parish’s founding in 2025 and he secured parish donors to cover the complete cost of this project. We expect that the windows will be installed after Christmas and we are looking forward to the blessing of the windows on Sunday, January 5 at the 9:30 AM Mass. Father Mullin, in whose honor the windows are being installed, will join us for the celebration.
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Saint John Neumann
Saint John Neumann learned pretty quickly what it meant to follow God's will with your whole heart and soul. He was certain that he was called to be a priest, but when the time came for ordination, his bishop fell ill and the ordination was cancelled. It was never rescheduled, because there was an over-abundance of priests in Europe. Knowing he was meant to be a priest, John traveled all the way from Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) to New York City to be ordained. He was one of only 36 priests, serving 200,000 Catholics: his 'parish' stretched from Lake Ontario throughout Pennsylvania.
In 1852, Bishop John Neumann was appointed the fourth bishop of Philadelphia. He became the founder of the first diocesan Catholic School system, going from only two schools to one hundred schools in the diocese. Bishop Neumann worked tirelessly to shepherd the people entrusted to his care. He died on January 5, 1860 at the age of 48.
Well-known for his holiness and learning, spiritual writing and preaching, on October 13, 1963, John Neumann became the first American bishop to be beatified. Canonized in 1977, he is buried in Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia.
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Saint Katharine Drexel
When she asked Pope Leo XIII to send more missionaries to Wyoming, he asked her, "Why don't you become a missionary?" As a young, wealthy, educated girl from Philadelphia, this was hardly the expected lifestyle for young Katharine Drexel. But raised in a devout family with a deep sympathy for the poor, Katharine gave up everything to become a missionary to the Native Americans and African Americans. She founded a religious congregation of women, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and opened Catholic schools in thirteen states for African Americans, forty mission centers and twenty-three rural schools. She also established fifty missions for Indians in sixteen different states. She died at the age of ninety-six and was canonized in the year 2000.
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Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton was the charming "belle of the ball" as a young woman in New York City, linked to all the first families. At the age of 19, she fell in love and married the wealthy, handsome William Magee Seton. The two had a very happy marriage, raising five children. Ten years after they were married, William's business and health both failed, and Elizabeth was left a poor widow with five children to raise alone. Her love for the Eucharist led her to convert to Catholicism and founded the first order of religious women in America, the Sisters of Charity of SAINT Joseph, a religious community based on the Rule of Saint Vincent De Paul. She was able to still raise her children, as well as live the life of a sister and found several schools. She became the co-founder of the first free Catholic School in America.
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Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
Nicknames are generally silly, entertaining names given to people by affectionate relatives or friends. It's rare to hear an enviable one. But "Lily of the Mohawks?" Now, that's an elegant nickname. This is the nickname of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. Orphaned at the age of four, she was raised by her uncle, the chief of the Mohawk village. When priests came to the village, Kateri was drawn by their teachings, and converted at the age of 19, heedless of the anger of her relatives. Because she refused to work on Sundays, she was denied meals that day. Finally, a missionary encouraged her to run away to Montreal, Canada, to practice her faith freely. She followed his advice, and lived a life of extreme prayer and penance, taking a vow of virginity. She was beatified in 1980 and canonized on October 21, 2012.
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