Artist creates Divine Mercy Windows for Fremont Catholic Church

With colored glass and paint, Ken Eldridge tells ancient Bible stories to modern-day people.

Eldridge is a stained glass artist for St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Fremont. For years, the local man had donated his time to create or restore stained glass windows for the parish.

Last year, he began working on the Divine Mercy windows project.

The windows will be installed in the Fremont church, with the process taking place during the week between Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, an official Holy Day, on April 28.

Currently, there is glass between the church's chapel and a tabernacle room where the sacraments are stored. The Divine Mercy windows will be installed where that glass is now.

The main Divine Mercy window depicts Christ with two beams, one red and one white, coming from his heart.

Parishioners and guests will be able to see through the image of Jesus into the tabernacle room, where a cross is the same height as Christ's heart.

There are 15 separate Divine Mercy windows, the main one of which is 4 feet by 8 feet. Other windows are smaller.

One depicts a dove with a banner that reads: "Jesus, I trust in you." Angels are depicted in two other windows. The lowest window will have a Celtic weave. Subsequent windows will be colored glass.

Eldridge estimates he'll have spent close to 3,000 hours on the project by the time he's finished.

"For me to create this design, I did countless hours of research and continue to do so to make sure I'm depicting my interpretation of the Divine Mercy properly and accurately based on Sister Faustina," he said.

Sister Faustina Kowalska was a Polish woman assigned to a parish in Lithuania.

In 1931, Kowalska said she had a vision of Christ, who said to create a painting of him — with the two beams — and to call it "Divine Mercy." The red beam is said to represent blood and the white or pale one symbolizes water. It was to be accompanied with a banner with the "Jesus, I trust in you" message.

The parish commissioned the painting to be made, which Kowalska saw before her death in 1938. 

She was only 33 years old.

Decades later, Pope John Paul II canonized her and she became Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska.

Besides the depiction of Christ with the two beams coming from his heart, Eldridge has added other elements to the main window.

The elements include shamrocks reminiscent of Saint Patrick of Ireland, for whom the Fremont church is named.

He's added five-pedal white roses from the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is especially meaningful to Hispanic parishioners.