Back in 1993 when we were preparing to renovate the Cathedral, I met by
chance (more likely by Providence!) a famous German stained-glass artist by
the name of von Stockhausen. I asked him if he would come to Seattle to
complete those three great stained-glass windows in the east apse of the
cathedral which at that time were about half as long as they are now. He
told me no. He was too old, he said, and already had too much work, but I
did talk him into coming to Seattle to advise us on the project.
He came and spent a week here. Some of the time he just sat in the
Cathedral, looking, thinking and praying, and some of the time he walked
around this block and saw people doing the Family Kitchen, the Winter
Shelter, the ESL Program, the St. Vincent de Paul outreach, and so forth. At
the end of the week he said to me, “I know what we should do with those
windows.” “We?” I asked with a smile. I thought you weren’t interested!”
“Well, I am now,” he said. Then he went on to tell me that two of the
windows should tell the story of today’s gospel, the Last Judgment from
Matthew’s Gospel in the 25th chapter: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food,
thirsty and you gave me drink, naked and you clothed me, sick and in prison
and you visited me.’ When I asked him why, he said, “because that is what
I’ve seen going on in this place all week long.” And now you know why it is
that today’s gospel is captured in glass in this Cathedral. And now you know
why I call Christ our guiding star: Christ the King, the unlikely king, the
suffering king, the king who depends on us for food and drink, clothing,
shelter and friendship is silently teaching and guiding us from those
windows day after day.