Fittingly, this is the nearest window to the entrance of the Divine Mercy Chapel, where the parishioners of St. Martin's, as well as people from all over the Archdiocese of Louisville and the Southern Indiana area come to pray in Perpetual Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. 

This window and the one on the opposite side of the church from it were described as "mystery windows" by Deborah Yetter in her book The Renaissance of the Church of St. Martin of Tours. This was because there is no way to clearly identify the men and women (the nimbuses indicate that they are saints) portrayed in these scenes. It is not known whether these depictions are of actual specific events (which would require the two saints portrayed in each to be contemporaries), or if they are more of an allegorical nature (showing the common devotion of two individuals from different periods of time; such a scene may be viewed in the St. Gregory Chapel: a mural there shows saints from various places and different periods of the Church's history looking upon our Crucified Lord at Calvary). It is also unclear how accurate the crafters of these windows were as regards the religious dress, or habits, of the saints portrayed. For example, when portraying a nun, did the craftsmen simply depict a woman in a black habit, or would they have been more specific (brown habit for Carmelites, white habit for Dominicans, etc.)? With these comments and questions in mind, we can look at a few possibilities for the identity of the "mystery" saints portrayed in each window. 

Many of the greatest saints of the Church were known for their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Several of these were German, or had some tie to Germanic lands, such as St. Albert the Great and his pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas. Albert {lived: 1206-1280; feast: November 15} laid the foundations for the proper use of reason in matters of faith. He later became Bishop of Regensburg in Germany. Thomas Aquinas {1226-1274; March 7} studied under Albert and later taught philosophy and theology at the University of Paris. His Summa Theologiae and many other writings are a treasure of sacred doctrine, and the Church calls him the "Angelic Doctor" because his science and insight seem more divine than human. Very devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, he composed the prayers and hymns for the Feast of Corpus Christi ("Body of Christ"). It is said that once, while he was at prayer, the Lord spoke to him from a crucifix, saying, "Well have you written of Me, Thomas." It seems unlikely, however, that Albert and Thomas are the subjects of this window: they were members of the Order of St. Dominic, but the saints seen here are not dressed in Dominican habits. Also, as ordained priests, they would have received the tonsure, which the saints here do not bear. Due to their youthful faces, it seems likely that our two "mystery saints" were young men who had not yet entered the clerical state. 

The saint on the left side of the window, dressed in a black cassock covered by a white linen and lacework surplice, is most likely St. Aloysius Gonzaga {1568-1591; June 21}. A statue of him, dressed in this same attire, may be seen in this church near window 3N. Aloysius was born in a castle in Lombardy. His father was the Marquis of Castiglione, and held a high position in the court of King Philip II of Spain. He wished to see Aloysius become a great military leader. Aloysius, however, did not have such worldly goals. At the age of 7, he began maintaining a rigorous schedule of prayer. He received his First Holy Communion from the hands of St. Charles Borromeo {1538- 1584; November 4} the Cardinal-Archbishop of Milan who was an important figure at the Council of Trent and in the Counter-Reformation. 

The fraud and intrigue Aloysius witnessed in the public life of his father's world made him desire all the more to be virtuous. When he was 12, he contracted a painful kidney disease that gave him an excuse to avoid appearing at aristocratic functions. He spent his time praying and reading about the lives of the saints. After reading the stories of the missionaries in India, he desired to enter the Society of Jesus. Also at this time, he began practicing the austerities of a monk: fasting three days a week on bread and water, scourging himself with a dog whip, denying himself heat in his room during the winter, and rising at midnight to kneel on his stone floor and pray. 

His mother approved of his wish to become a Jesuit, but his father was very much opposed. The well-connected aristocrat sent eminent churchmen and laymen to talk him out of it. He used both threats and promises to dissuade Aloysius, and engaged him in many secular pursuits in the hopes of awakening some new interest within the boy. Nothing could change Aloysius' mind. The marquis finally relented and gave his permission. Aloysius formally and legally renounced his right of succession to his father's title and property. 

He entered the Jesuit novitiate house in Rome on November 25, 1585. Taking possession of his little cell, he exclaimed, "This is my rest forever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen it" (a paraphrase of Psalm 132:14). He took his vows, and began studying philosophy and theology at the Roman College. His instructor and confessor was St. Robert Bellarmine {1542-1621; May 13}, a future Cardinal and a brilliant defender of Catholic doctrine who was known as the "hammer of heretics". Shortly after Aloysius entered the novitiate, he received news that his father had died, and that he had totally reformed his life after his son left home. 

Although he was born and raised as an aristocrat, Aloysius became the model of humility as a novice. He begged to be allowed to serve in the kitchen, wash dishes, and perform other menial duties. He extended his service to those outside of the novitiate when he volunteered to work in a Jesuit hospital during the Roman plague of 1591. There, he bathed patients and changed their beds. He caught the disease, and was given the last rites of the Church. Miraculously, he recovered, but was much weakened. After making a Confession to Father Bellarmine, he had an ecstatic vision in which it was revealed to him that he would die on the octave of Corpus Christi. He daily prayed the Te Deum in thanksgiving. When the octave day came, it seemed to his attendants that his health was stable. But Aloysius insisted: "I am going to Heaven!" At his insistence, he received the Viaticum and anointing from Bellarmine. He lay still, occasionally quoting Christ on the Cross: "Into Thy hands..." With his eyes on the crucifix and the Name of Jesus on his lips, he died around midnight on the very day he had predicted. He was canonized in 1726, and is the patron saint of youth. 

If this saint is Aloysius, then who is the saint pictured with him? If the other saint is not meant to be a contemporary, then he may be another youth raised to the honors of the Altar by the Church. Among the possibilities are Stanislaus Kostka, John Berchmans, Gerard Majella, Dominic Savio, and Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother. 

St. Stanislaus Kostka {1550-1568; November 13}, the "angelic youth", was the son of a Polish senator. He was sent to study at the Jesuit College in Vienna. In 1566 he became ill and lay near death. He asked for the Viaticum, but his Lutheran landlord refused to allow the Blessed Sacrament into his home. Stanislaus prayed, and shortly later received a vision in which an angel brought him Communion. The Blessed Virgin then appeared to him in a vision, telling him that his hour of death was not yet come. She instructed him to devote his life to God. 

He resolved to join the Jesuits. When he petitioned the Order's provincial in Vienna turned him away out of fear of angering Stanislaus' powerful father, the young man vowed to walk all the way to Jesuit headquarters in Rome if necessary. Dressed in the coarse clothing of a penitent, he walked to Augsburg, then to Dillingen. There he requested admission from St. Peter Canisius {1517-1597; April 27}, the provincial of Upper Germany. Canisius tested the young man's resolve, and put him to work doing menial jobs, which Stanislaus performed with respect and humility. Impressed, the provincial sent him on to Rome. There, he was accepted by the Father-General of the Society, St. Francis Borgia {1510-1572; October 10} in 1567. His angry father threatened to procure the expulsion of the Jesuits from Poland, and told his son that he was following a profession unworthy of his birth. Stanislaus replied to him by expressing his firm purpose of serving God according to his vocation. 

Stanislaus had great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. His face lit up each time he entered a church, and he often had ecstacies at Mass after receiving Holy Communion. He was often in poor health. One day in 1568, he discussed the Assumption of Mary with a priest. He remarked that on the day when the faithful on Earth celebrate that feast, the blessed in Heaven must especially celebrate. He told the priest, "I hope to be there for the next feast they keep of it." Just ten days later he fell ill. He died at 3 AM on August 15 - the Feast of the Assumption! Soon after, his brother Paul arrived with orders to bring Stanislaus back to Poland. He was shocked to find that his younger sibling was dead. Paul had always abused Stanislaus, and laughed at his piety. He re-evaluated his life, eventually joining the Jesuits himself. Stanislaus was canonized in 1726. 

Another prospect for Aloysius' partner is St. John Berchmans {1599-1621; November 26}. Born in Diest, Belgium, not far from Germany, he entered the Jesuit Order after reading the biography of St. Aloysius. Like St. Therese of Lisieux two centuries later, John became known for seeking perfection in little things. Like Aloysius three decades previously, he died before ordination. The patron saint of altar boys, John Berchmans was canonized in 1888, just in time for the creation of this window. 

Gerard Majella {1726-1755; October 16} was another young saint. An early lay brother in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (better known as the Redemptorists), he was known to spend many hours in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Of him, the Congregation's founder, St. Alphonsus Liguori {1696-1787; August 2} remarked, "Our brother Gerard is a saint." As a patron, his intercession for a safe delivery is often prayed for by expectant mothers, and thus it stands to reason that he may have been popular with this parish's booming population at the time these windows were installed. He had been beatified by that time, although he would not be canonized until 1904. 

St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother {1838-1862; February 27} was born Francis Possenti and was the eleventh of thirteen children. Francis grew up vain and devoted to the pleasures of the world, and it was a surprise to all who knew him when he entered the Passionist Order. Given the name "Brother Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows", he dedicated himself to prayer and penance. He died while studying for the priesthood, and is invoked as the patron saint of clerics. It should be noted that Gabriel was not canonized until 1920, nearly 35 years after this window was made. 

St. Dominic Savio {1842-1857; March 9} was another youth who attained sanctity during a short lifespan. He was a peasant's son who desired to become a priest. He went to Turin to become a student of St. John Bosco {1815-1888; January 31}, the founder of the Salesian Order. Dominic started a group among his fellow students called the "Company of the Immaculate Conception" to help Don Bosco care for neglected boys. He was known for his holiness and his cheerfulness, and engaged in intense prayer for as long as six hours at a time. He became seriously ill, and suffered greatly on his deathbed. At his final moment, his face lit up and he smiled with intense joy, saying, "I am seeing the most wonderful things!" Although Don Bosco made Dominic's story known throughout the Catholic world, it seems unlikely that he is one of the saints depicted in this window. His cause for canonization did not begin until 1914, and he was not raised to the honors of the altar until 1950. 

Interestingly, these two men are not the only "mystery saints" depicted in this window. Above and behind their altar may be seen a portion of a reredos with hinged panels. This altarpiece bears statues and painted images of a few more saints who cannot be identified (and are probably only generic representations). 

Regardless of their identity, this window depicts two saints kneeling before a gold and glass ostensorium (from the Latin ostendere - "to show"), a vessel designed for the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. On each side of the glass cylinder is a small golden statue of a saint. Behind the glass, a Sacred Host is held erect by the lunette, a crescent shaped brace. The letters IHS are impressed upon the Host. This is a monogram of Ihesus, a spelling of Jesus' Holy Name used in the Middle Ages. These three letters have also been said to be an abbreviation for Iesus Hominum Salvator - Latin for "Jesus, Savior of Men." The monogram can also be seen in the background on the veil of the Tabernacle, the receptacle or case in which the Blessed Sacrament is generally reserved. The veil covering a Tabernacle or its door must either be white, as in this depiction, or the liturgical color of the day. 

The ostensorium seen here is of an early style. The vessel was later adapted to more effectively draw the eyes of the faithful to the Sacred Host by making the trans- parent portion of the receptacle only as large as the Host it would hold, and then surrounding this with "rays" of precious metals. This later type of ostensorium, most commonly referred to as a monstrance, may be seen in the Divine Mercy Chapel. 

Behind the ostensorium, at the base of the reredos depicted in this window, is an image of the Holy Face. This is an artistic representation of the veil which tradition says a woman wiped Christ's face with as He carried the Cross on the way to Calvary (see the 6th Station of the Cross, between windows 6N and 7N). According to this non- scriptural story, first written of in the 4th century book The Acts of Pilate, a perfect image of the Lord's bruised and bloody face was left imprinted on her cloth. Tradition has thus named the woman St. Veronica, from the Greek vera icon - "true image". Devotion to the Holy Face was promoted in the 19th century by Leo Dupont, a layman of Tours, France (the same town in which our parish's patron, St. Martin, served as Bishop in the 4th century). Copies of the image were often displayed in homes and churches (a framed print is beneath the statue of the Sacred Heart at the front of our church). The copy seen in this window is only partially visible: the edges of the cloth and the image of Christ's hair can be seen, but the Holy Face itself is obscured by the ostensorium containing the Blessed Sacrament. This may be symbolic of the fact that when we gaze upon the Eucharist, we are looking at Jesus, although His Face and Body are hidden from us behind the veil of bread. 

As demonstrated by the previous window, the Sacrament of the Eucharist was instituted by Christ at the Last Supper. Belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament dates from this very event, when the Lord Himself said, "This is my Body... This is my Blood". The Real Presence was written of by the Early Church Fathers. In the 2nd century, for example, St. Justin Martyr {died: 165; feast: April 14} wrote: "We do not receive this food as ordinary bread and as ordinary drink; but just as Jesus Christ, our Savior, became Flesh through the Word of God and assumed flesh and blood for our salvation, so too we are taught that the food over which the Eucharistic prayer is said, the food which nourishes our flesh and blood by assimilation, is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ." 

In the first ages of the Church this belief was expressed entirely within the Liturgy as the faithful concentrated their attention on the Eucharist as a sacrifice for sins and food for the soul in Holy Communion. It is known that from the earliest times Eucharistic species were being reserved (kept on hand) for the purpose of taking to the sick and dying. Eventually, extraliturgical devotions began to honor Christ's abiding Presence outside of the Mass through adoration of the reserved Blessed Sacrament. 

Prayer before the Sacrament reserved on the High Altar was definitely being practiced by the 12th century. During the century which followed, however, various heresies arose which doubted the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. God responded with several Eucharistic miracles. His Church responded with stronger and more explicit statements of this constant dogma. The Feast of Corpus Christi, the purpose of which is to demonstrate to all of Christendom the Church's unwavering faith in the Real Presence, was decreed by Pope Urban IV as early as 1244, but was not definitively established until 1332. By the 14th century it was common practice for Christians to make "visits" to churches for the sole purpose of individual prayer before the reserved Blessed Sacrament. Special prayers were composed for these devotional visits. The pious custom of genuflection (dropping upon one knee out of reverence) before the place of reservation developed. 

Individual devotions soon led to communal devotions to the Real Presence. The reserved Eucharist began to be exposed to the faithful in ostensoriums. These vessels may have been made as early as the 11th century, and most definitely were being crafted by the 13th century. The first religious order devoted to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was formed in 1393. The Forty Hours devotion, in which a parish or community adored the Eucharist for the said amount of time, began in 1534. At that time, to say that there was "perpetual adoration" merely meant that the Forty Hours devotions were so common that at any time there was somebody in the world adoring the Lord in the Sacrament. The concept of Perpetual Adoration in a literal sense (both day and night, every day, year round, at one church or chapel) eventually evolved from these shorter periods of devotion. 

In past centuries, Papal permission was required for a religious order or diocese to engage in Perpetual Adoration. In the first two decades after the Second Vatican Council, extra-liturgical Eucharistic devotions became almost nonexistant. However, our current Pontiff, John Paul II, has encouraged the renewal of individual and communal Eucharistic Adoration in every diocese of the world. In 1980 he wrote, "The Church and the world have a great need of Eucharistic Adoration... Jesus waits for us in this Sacrament of love... Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Him in adoration, and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world... May our adoration never cease!" 

- St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) 
              translated by Edward Caswall (1814-1878) 

- Joachim Neander (1650-1680) 
                          translated by Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878) 

- St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274)