Patron saint windows connect Divine Mercy communities

By DAWN PROSSER
Director of Communications
 
When Tom Eischen retired last August, he was able to find time to pray in the adoration chapel connected to Algona St. Cecelia Church, Divine Mercy Parish. His first hour spent in the chapel inspired a beautiful gift.
 
“I was sitting there and I was looking at the windows. They were kind of a frosted glass. I knew my sister did stained glass. Something came over me and I said it would look nice if we had stained glass windows in here,” Eischen recalled.
 
His sister, Nancy Dereng, had recently created a stained glass window in memory of their parents for the Kossuth Regional Health Center in Algona. Eischen asked if she would create six windows for the adoration chapel and he would cover the cost as a gift to the parish. She agreed to take on the project.

 Photo gallery and window ID

He then contacted Abby Cunningham, parish media specialist, and proposed a donation of the windows for the chapel. Soon Father Matthew Solyntjes, Divine Mercy pastor, approved of the donated windows and he and Cunningham pondered what designs the six windows should have, Cunningham said.
 
The two hoped the six windows could represent the patron saints of the churches that made up the merged Divine Mercy Parish:

• Sacred Heart in Ledyard
• St. Cecilia in Algona
• St. John the Baptist in Bancroft
• St. Joseph in St. Joseph and St. Joseph in Wesley
• St. Michael in Whittemore
• Sts. Peter and Paul in West Bend

 Father Solyntjes and Cunningham shared their idea with Dereng to see if it would be possible to have the six different windows representing the parish churches. The artist told them she was up for the challenge.
 
“We wanted people to feel like they have a piece of their church in the chapel, even though it’s at St. Cecelia’s,” Cunningham explained. “Everybody has a place and are welcome in the perpetual adoration chapel.”
 
Dereng created preliminary sketches to start the conversation, then she and Cunningham met via FaceTime to discuss options.
 
“Father Matthew trusted me a lot in this process,” the media specialist said. “It was a team process … She would show me the colors just to see the different lighting and see all the options next to each other.”

Father Solyntjes with the Eischens and Derengs

To tie the theme of the windows together, Cunningham stressed that the Divine Mercy should somehow be represented in each one. 
“I wanted it to feel like Divine Mercy but all connected,” she said.
 
The concept of including a representation of the rays depicted in the Divine Mercy image was developed and Dereng incorporated that in the lower portion of each window.
 
“They sketched it up and showed us the gradient of the reds and the blues. I chose the middle (color – gold) that represents Jesus’ gown in the Divine Mercy image,” Cunningham said.
 
Eischen said his sister began cutting the glass pieces and assembling them in October and all the windows were completed in February, ready for installation once they made the trek from South Carolina to Algona.
 
“She meticulously packed them in a big box, put foam on the bottom of the box and put each bubble-wrapped picture in … It was well-packed and layered,” Eischen said. “They worried about it the whole way, but they came out perfectly fine.”
 
Once they arrived in Iowa, Dereng’s husband, Larry, picked up stainless steel to create frames to hold the stained glass in the window openings. Cook’s Scrapiron donated the metal for the project.
 
“I asked my sister how many hours she spent in putting the glass together. She said it was 300 hours,” Eischen said.
The framing and installation began March 17 and was completed the next day by 10:30 a.m. just in time to clear out of the chapel before a parish funeral. Eischen said he is pleased with the results. 

“It really enhanced (the chapel), especially when the sun shines. If you go outside, you can see them through the frosted glass,” he pointed out. “We left that on to protect it with the stained glass on the inside.”
 
Cunningham noted there were stained glass windows originally in the chapel, but at one point were taken out and frosted glass windows of a different size were installed.
 
Many parishioners have reached out to Eischen to thank him for his gift that both enhances the chapel and highlights the patron saints of the parish churches.
 
“Everyone is just ecstatic about it,” Cunningham added. “It’s been well-received and adds just enough color. … we’re very happy. (The windows) truly feel like a blessing straight from heaven.”