Stained Glass Window by Jay Grooters
of Estes Park, Colorado
When three people came together in time (2005 into the year 2006) and place (Estes Park, CO) – a wonderful and inspiring ‘holy work’ came about. It is the 1,100-piece stained glass window depicting Our Lady of the Mountains.
The three people are:
- Rosemary Gergen – a longtime parishioner at Our Lady of the Mountains. She wanted to ‘bequeath’ a financial gift in memory of her late husband, Paul. Rosemary’s idea was to provide the financial resources to have a new stained glass window on the north side of an already beautiful rock and wood beam church. Rosemary wanted the new window to honor the Blessed Virgin and add light and color to the peaceful interior.
- Father Gregory Cioch – pastor of Our Lady of the Mountains for the last four years. Father is a Polish immigrant with a wonderful eye for design and religious art. He decided to accept the funding grant and, together with Rosemary, they worked with the artisan Jay, mentioned below. Father helped guide the project through some five different design concepts until the threesome decided they had arrived at exactly what would honor the Blessed Virgin Mary and please the parishioners.
- Jay Grooters – an artisan with some 30 years of stained glass experience. But this was going to be his largest ever project. As stated above – the final design required over 11,000 pieces of cut glass. Jay said that using a special computer program, it took 52 sheets of paper when he printed out the full design for final approval. Grooters has received nothing but accolades and admiration for the finished project.
The completed project was installed and dedicated in the summer of 2006. Our Lady of the Mountains in stained glass is illuminated from inside the church at night. It is beautiful seeing Mary, our Mother from the outside when driving by or going for a neighborhood walk. And during daylight hours, from inside – we see parishioners often turning to this window image to lift minds and hearts towards Mary and her son, Jesus.
That is what happens with Mary – she always helps draw us closer to her son.
