St. Agnes Church auctioning its stained-glass windows

By Jim Davis - Florida Catholic

Photography: JIM DAVIS | FC

KEY BISCAYNE | Ever wanted a stained-glass window? Then you're in luck. St. Agnes Church is planning to sell 53 of them – some nearly six feet wide.

How much? Well, that's what the auction will be about.

For nearly seven decades, the windows have bathed worshipers in color. Now, St. Agnes is replacing its building, along with most of the windows.

For art lovers – or homeowners with at least one big wall – that can mean a bright new addition. For St. Agnes parishioners, it could defray the cost of a much-needed new home.

The windows were made both in traditional stained glass and the newer faceted glass. They show doves, crosses, Christian symbols like the Chi-Rho monogram, and the sunrise of resurrection.

Selling them will help make room for six new windows, telling the life and martyrdom of the fourth century St. Agnes. The new windows will be in the new church, part of a complex taking up more than 34,000 square feet on seven acres.

Called “A Piece of St. Agnes,” the auction starts with an online page with numbered pictures of the windows for sale. Click anywhere, and it leads you to an online form to where you indicate the number of the window you are interested in and how much you're bidding.

There's also a comments box where people can indicate any other windows they are interested in and if they have a priority. Alternately, they can fill out the form several times, giving their first, second, third or other choice. Last day of the auction is Sept. 15.

All proceeds will go to the “Building with Joy” project, the fund for the complex being built. The church has released artist renderings of the buildings.

The church building will stand at the southeast corner, with the parish's middle school behind it. A gymnasium will link it with the elementary school building. Church and school will form a “U” around a plaza, where the old church stood.

Overlooking that space, on the front wall of the gymnasium, will be the church’s Emmaus window, which stood behind the altar for more than 40 years. Towering over it all, 63 feet high, will be the church spire, with a cross and bell.

“It was sad to see the old place go,” said Marcela Zamora Eraña, who runs the building fund, and was baptized, schooled and married at St. Agnes. “But the next place will be so much better: a living legacy for future generations.”

Anabel Teran Stevens, parish business manager and a parishioner for 44 years, voiced her own hopes for the new complex. “In many ways, I think what I pray for most is the faith of my children. Having a beautiful place for families to continue to worship will be wonderful.”

Plans call for the windows auction to take place in late summer, after members have returned from vacation. Church leaders want to celebrate their first Mass in the new building around June 2023. So they have not a moment to lose.

June 26 marked the last day that members of St. Agnes worshiped at their church home since 1954. Longtime parishioners shared their testimonies of their memories and what the church has meant to them.

Helen Albertson, a member since 1969, shared some of the history of the parish. She noted that the structure was actually built as a temporary place of worship until the church was built.

“It only took about 70 years,” Albertson joked. More seriously, she said the interim before the new house of worship is built should be “a time to say thank you to the Lord for what we are and what we have.”

After the last Mass, parishioners walked in procession from the church building to the auditorium, singing and praying as they went. They’ll continue worshipping there while the new, larger church is built.

About 70 parishioners have taken part in planning the new complex over five years. They’ve considered matters as aesthetic as colors and as mundane as a mesh fabric layer to keep the soil firm under the new parking lot.

Such things loomed large with the old building, which was suffering from several issues. Among them: The foundation, built without pilings, was cracking. The wood under the roof was rotting. And the choir loft had one entrance and no emergency exit.

In addition to those fixes, the parishioners decided to build up. The first floor will actually be the second floor, over a garage area. Sides of the garage will be left open, to allow any floodwaters to pass through. It's a necessary precaution on an island like Key Biscayne, Zamora Eraña said.

Projected price was originally $18 million, but that was before inflation and the shipping pinch. Father Juan Carlos Paguaga, pastor, estimated the cost could be 25% higher.

How to cope with such financial vagaries? “We've had joy, peace and the enthusiasm and support of the community. They think of this as a mission,” Father Paguaga said.

None of the challenges have stopped religious life at St. Agnes. Since it was born in 1952, the parish has baptized 4,582 people and held 5,337 first communions, 3,899 confirmations, 1,192 matrimonies and 787 funerals.

Church activities have continued even amid the dust of construction. They include Marriage Covenant retreats, in English and Spanish; weekly adoration sessions for youths; and Effeta retreats, for Catholics 18 to 30 years old.

St. Agnes Church has also conducted more than 80 Emmaus weekends, for men and women alike, over the past 22 years.

“We don’t have a lukewarm church – we have an active, vibrant church,” Stevens said.

Even the furnishings from the old church will be used for ministry. St. Agnes has donated its older pews, impact-resistant doors and chandeliers to a church in Haiti, through the archdiocese’s lay missionary group, Amor en Accion.

After this story was posted, information was added about how the auction of the stained glass windows is taking place. The source of Helen Albertson's quote also was clarified as coming from a parish press release.