Today, April 8, is the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord which celebrates the moment when Jesus Christ became incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1.26-38). Ave Maria! This historic scene is depicted in a stained-glassed window just to the left of the sanctuary of Saint Mary Cathedral in Lansing, pictured below. It’s the favorite stained-glass window of the Most Reverend Carl Mengeling, Bishop Emeritus of Lansing, pictured above.
“Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it because it's a perfect picture of the Christian vocation in the fullest sense of all of us,” said 94-year-old Bishop Mengeling upon a visit to Saint Mary for the Chrism Mass during Holy Week last month.
“She’s the mother, she’s the mother of the Church and that means me and you and everybody here. She’s not only the mother, she shows us the way. She says ‘yes” and that yes has no limits. That’s wonderful.”
The Most Reverend Carl F. Mengeling was the Bishop of Lansing from 1996 to 2008. A much-loved figure among the clergy and lay faithful of the Diocese of Lansing, Bishop Mengeling has continued to play an active part in the life of the diocese ever since.
Meanwhile, the construction of Saint Mary in Lansing began in 1911 under the guidance of the renowned Lansing architect, Edwyn A. Bowd. The neo-gothic church was completed two years later and consecrated on December 8, 1913, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom the church is dedicated. The stained-glass windows were made in Munich, Germany, and were installed in 1923. In 1937, Saint Mary became the cathedral church of the newly erected Diocese of Lansing.
