Former chapel windows repurposed at St. Paul's

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – Stained glass windows from a closed school had just been installed in their new home when they were used to teach students about sainthood.
These windows of the Holy Family had graced the chapel at St. Peter-Marian Central Catholic Jr./Sr. High School. The school was merged with Holy Name Central Catholic Jr./Sr. High School in the fall of 2020 to form St. Paul Diocesan Jr./Sr. High School at Holy Name’s campus. Some items from St. Peter-Marian were saved for the new school.
“I’m just thrilled … that we’re able to carry forward this important piece of liturgical patrimony,” Michael Clark, St. Paul’s head of school, told The Catholic Free Press as the windows were being put up in lighted frames on a wall in their new home Oct. 27. “We’ve been using the theater (St. Paul’s Burke Auditorium) as our liturgical gathering space, so I think it brings a deeper element of the sacred to our worship” to have the stained glass there.
Mr. Clark called the windows “a storyboard of the Blessed Mother” and rejoiced that they were installed in October, the month of the rosary. They depict the Annunciation, Birth of Christ, finding of Jesus in the temple and the Holy Family in Joseph’s carpentry shop.
 At All Saints’ Day Mass on Nov. 1, Mr. Clark said, he told students, “For Mary and Joseph, their path to sainthood began with Jesus; it began with family.” That is true for all of us, he said. He said what the different scenes have in common is “the affirmation of family.”
Everyone is called to sainthood, but getting there can seem impossible, he said, adding that Mary and Joseph probably didn’t think about aspiring to sainthood; they found it in family life by answering God’s call.
Michael Martino, owner of Martino Stained Glass Studio in Uxbridge, who restored the windows, considers his career “a privileged call.”
“I do thank God for how he’s blessed my life with this privilege” of restoring stained glass windows and making new ones, said the member of St. Mary Parish in Uxbridge.
Usually he works in churches, sometimes restaurants or homes, and people often aren’t present, he said. At St. Paul’s, he enjoyed observing students who came into the auditorium for music class while he and his team were working there. They “manifest a character,” and seem very nice, he said.
“I think the windows could speak to them about their … training,” he said. He said he thinks students could especially meditate on the scenes of Jesus in the temple, learning from the religious leaders, and in the carpentry shop, learning a trade from Joseph. They could see Jesus as a role model for whom spiritual training and work ethic were both important.
Mr. Martino told The Catholic Free Press about his own work to bring the windows where they are today.
In August 2021 his company dismounted the windows, and a mosaic of the Stations of the Cross, in St. Peter-Marian’s chapel. The Stations were stored there, the windows in his studio.
In October 2021 his company mounted the Stations on a wall in St. Paul’s auditorium. A year later they mounted the windows in frames on the opposite wall.  
He started restoring the windows last February. The studio’s artist, Nikolai Bruinskiy, repainted them where needed. Mr. Martino resized them, taking out extra glass in order to “zoom in … focus on the important part” – the pictures.
Mr. Martino’s brother Christopher Martino made the wooden frames for the windows. Martino Stained Glass mounted the frames on the wall this summer.
The auditorium does not have any windows that let in natural light, so the stained glass is backlit with LED lighting, he noted. Lighting was done by Favulli Electric in Worcester, with Russell Conway Jr., as project manager, Mr. Clark said.
Mr. Clark said he thought students and faculty who were once at St. Peter-Marian, as well as those who weren’t, “were very happy that the windows were able to be repurposed.”