St. Francis Xavier Cabrini

      Have you ever gazed at the beautiful stained-glass window at IC Lansing and wondered who Mother Cabrini was? This artistic memorial remembers a woman who was born in Italy in 1850. She was a sickly child, and even though she wanted more than anything to join the community of sisters who had taught her, they denied her admission because she was considered to be “frail”. She went on to do so many wonderful things that the last word anyone today would attribute to her would be “frail”. 

      At the age of 30, she was joined by other young women to form a new congregation of sisters and was given approval by Pope Leo XIII. This order was the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They are still in existence today. The pope told her to go to America, so off she and a group of other women went to New York City. They worked in the area teaching Italian immigrant children including many orphans. In her lifetime, she made 23 trans-Atlantic crossings and established schools, hospitals, and orphanages in Europe, Central America, South America, and the US. Quite an amazing accomplishment for someone considered “frail”! Her feast day is November 13, and she is the patron saint of immigrants. She had become a US citizen, so she was the first US citizen to be canonized as a saint.

St. Isaac Jogues

      Another of the windows at IC Lansing memorializes St. Isaac Jogues. His feast day is celebrated on Oct. 19 along with the other North American martyrs. He was a Jesuit missionary who was born in France. He arrived in Quebec, Canada in 1636 and spent his time evangelizing the Native people of the area: Iroquois, Huron, and Mohawk people. He and the other priests tried to learn the language and customs of the people to win their trust. In addition to their faith, these early missionaries also brought smallpox and measles to the people who hadn’t been exposed to them before. When many of the Native people began to sicken and die, Isaac Jogues was subjected to horrible torture. He subsequently returned to Europe temporarily. Upon his return to Canada, he was murdered by the Mohawks he was trying to evangelize.

      He was canonized in 1930 along with 7 other Jesuit martyrs. They are remembered today at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs at Auriesville, New York.

St. Pius X

The third window at IC, Lansing is St. Pius X. He served as the pope from August 1903 to August 1914. He is remembered for lowering the age for receiving First Communion from 12-14 to age 7. He was very scholarly and laid the foundations for many new dioceses being established in North and South America.

St. Rene Goupil

The fourth window is dedicated to St. Rene Goupil who was a companion to St. Isaac Jogues. He had entered the Jesuit order in his native France but was dismissed due to his deafness. Instead, he volunteered to be a lay brother and traveled to the New World in 1642. He worked caring for the native people in a Mohawk village with Father Jogues, and they were both martyred by the Mohawk during the same time period. They are honored on October 19, the feast of the North American Martyrs.

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

The final window on the east side of IC Lansing, tucked behind the stairs going to the choir loft, was dedicated to Kateri Tekakwitha, a native American woman who lived in the 1600s in both a Mohawk village and later in a Jesuit mission village both in Canada. She was stricken with smallpox as a child in the same epidemic that took the lives of all of her family. She was terribly scarred from the disease. She became a Catholic at the age of nineteen and was ostracized terribly for this and for her appearance. She was very sickly as well as very devout, and after she died at age 24, her skin immediately cleared up. She was the first Native American to be canonized a saint in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.