Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Chapel

Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Chapel is unique among places of worship at colleges and universities.  The chapel has a unique history and an unusual design.  originally built by the Marist Brothers and Marist College.  

"This is the church of the future."

Those were the words of Francis Cardinal Spellman at the dedication of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Chapel on May 2, 1954.  The chapel's octagonal shape was innovative for its time, allowing worshippers to sit anywhere and still be equidistant from the altar at the center.

The chapel is unusual for another reason.  It was hand-built by Marist Brothers who lived, studied and worked on the campus of what was then Marian College.  The motto of the Marist Brothers, Orare et Laborare, to pray and to work, was exemplified in the building of the chapel.  Br. Nilus Donnelly, director of all construction at the college, led the building effort.  For an architect, Br. Nilus Donnelly tapped Clarence H. Pratt of Ashton, Huntress and Pratt in Lawrence, Mass., with whom he had worked previously.  Br. Paul Ambrose Fontaine, the superior of the college, also played a major role in the chapel construction, most notably organizing a team of Brothers to carry the chapel's roof beams on their shoulders across Route 9 from a railroad stop to the building site.

The desire of the Brothers to have stained glass windows in the chapel was not realized until much later.  When the building was renovated in 1999, a decision was made to add stained glass windows that would educate chapel users about religious symbols in the Old and New Testament.  The installation of the stained glass in 2002 completed the work of the Marist Brothers begun 50 years earlier.  

Then in 2005 an interfaith prayer room was established in the Chapel so that people of all faiths would have a place on campus to pray. 

 The stained glass was designed by Ellen Miret for Rohlf's Studios and constructed using glass from around the world.  The window is mostly German and French mouth-blown antique glass blown "free form" and then opened "flat" just as glass has been made for hundreds of years.  Other glass included is English (Hartly Wood factory), Polish and some from West Virginia (Blenko) and Oregon (Fremont) as well as cathedral glass (machine-rolled) from Colorado (Bulls eye factory).  Some of the line work- fore example, the bee, rooster, and violets-is done with copper wire and much of the color is added with glass powder, not paint or enamel.  Most of the graphic line is achieved through the use of lead overlays. 

The Artist's concept was to show no beginning or end but instead a continuous flow of color, symbols and movement from each of the eight panels into the next.  Ongoing themes include the color blue, a color associated with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the patroness of the Marist Brothers and the person in whose honor the chapel is named.  The recurring depiction of water suggests baptism, the giving one's life to the service of others in the example of Jesus, the tradition of Marcellin Champagnat, the life of the Marist Brothers and the philosophy of Marist College.  The symbol Vesica Piscis (patient fisherman) is a pointed oval figure, formed by the intersection of the arcs of two equal circles, each of which passes through the center of the other.  The Vesica Piscis was frequently used in ecclesiastical architecture and art, often to enclose a sacred figure such as Christ or Mary.  According to the artist, the symbol of Christ becomes the foundation of the window, reflecting the centerpiece for the Marist movement begun by St. Marcellin Champagnat.