Light and Hope features five beautiful backlit stained glass windows about the story of the Birth and early Childhood of Jesus.  The windows in the exhibit are Betrothal of Mary and Joseph, followed by the Visitation between Mary and Elizabeth, No Room in the Inn, the Shepherds in the Stable, and the Flight into Egypt, which completed the Birth of Christ.  The two windows, which round out the childhood of Jesus, are Jesus as a young boy in the temple at age 12 and a domestic scene in Joseph’s carpenter’s shop.

The windows in this exhibit were created by the Franz Mayer & Co. of Munich, Germany and date back to 1903.  After their creation, the windows were transported to New York where they were once a part of Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Buffalo, New York.  Forest Lawn later purchased the windows.  Some of the collection is now part of the stunning buildings in Forest Lawn, but these have been kept in storage.  We bring these windows out each Christmas since they are a beautiful depiction of the story of Jesus’ early life.

These windows are just part of the stunning examples of more than 1,000 stained glass windows in the Forest Lawn Collection - a collection that the Smithsonian Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum have called “one of the finest and most important collections in North America.”  The Forest Lawn collection of stained glass is remarkable and is like none other in the world.