Stained glass windows in churches have long been a source of fascination and inspiration for me.

I know I can worship God anywhere, anytime, and I do not need beads, crosses, or colored windows to do so. Yet, I have experienced moments with a grand sense of peace, serenity, and God’s presence, all from sitting alone in a chapel filled with the translucent light shining through stained glass windows.  

How can I explain that?

How does such beauty inspire a sense of awe, wonder, and reverence—yes, even a transcendent declaration of God’s existence and character?  

In 1970, while studying at Georgia Tech,  I worked as a CO-OP student with Southern Bell. My first job was at 805 Peachtree Street in Atlanta.  Next door was St. Mark’s Methodist Church.  Once or twice a week, I would take a break and walk next door to sit alone in St. Mark’s chapel and pray. The stained glass felt like a welcoming companion, radiating the beauty of Christ. 

More recently, in 2023, a visit to Paris and the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur, one of Europe’s more impressive cathedrals, found me again in awe.  The stained glass windows in every nook and nave inspirationally invited me once again to kneel and pray. It compelled reverence. The picture here is one I took during our trip.

I had a different reaction on that same European trip last year (December 2023) to Reims Cathedral in France. There, a few of the stained glass windows had been redone in 2011 by German artist,  Imi Knoebel. His minimalist, abstract motifs using the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue seemed out of place. They had no story or theme—just a vibrant aura of differing colors.

I didn’t like them. They were colorful, but not meaningful.

And now there is a growing controversy with the restoration efforts of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Some windows may be replaced with “modernist” versions and Parisians are quite upset.

Speaking of Notre Dame, their famous Rose windows, designed and built in the 13th century, were not damaged by the 2019 fire and will remain as some of the most famous stained glass artwork in the world.

Stained glass, at its finest, creates a sacred atmosphere, especially when it conveys a theme or story.  Beholding the refracted beams of colored light  prompts an emotional response — and a spiritual one. The light bursting through the colored panes creates a contemplative serene atmosphere, inviting you to sit, kneel, pray, and reflect. 

The ubiquitous artwork I saw in London’s Westminster Abbey in 2024 had that same effect. One can appreciate the artwork, even the historical aspect of it but cannot escape its awe-inspiring, faith-inducing allure.

Maybe it’s the symbolism of God’s divine light representing hope, truth, and love. Or the history it seeks to teach — the central beliefs of Christianity — with large, colorful scenes depicting stories of Christ and the saints. Regardless, stained glass windows, whether telling a story or offering mere symbolism, serve as a visual reminder of the history of the Christian faith and the beliefs that shaped it.  They are visual catechisms engaging you to look, learn, and savor the beauty of their designs and the significance of their messages.

I sensed all that in the chapel at St. Marks’ Church in 1970, and most compellingly in the windows at the Sacre-Coeur Basilica in Paris and Westminster Abbey in London. These artworks were more than the message inherent to the stories conveyed. The beauty of what I beheld took me to another place.

Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, in his Nobel speech, spoke of art this way, “… those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force—they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.” 

As an older, hopefully wiser man, I cannot look into the evening sky without that same awe. Every stained glass window, every matchless piece of artwork points me heavenward.

Psalm 8:3-9

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

You have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

The next time you behold such art, I encourage you to sit and soak in the gleaming light shining before you. Take a moment to allow the beauty of the images and scenes bathing the sacred space with light to soak your soul in truth. 

That’s why I find stained glass windows to be a source of heart-inspiring wonder.