Anyone who has prayed at the tomb of St. Arnold Janssen in Steyl will surely remember the great stained-glass window rising above his sarcophagus. It is not merely a work of sacred art. Rather, it is a synthesis of a spirituality born from the contemplation of the Triune God and expressed in the missionary vocation of the Church.

At first glance, one sees only an interplay of light and color. Yet, with time, a deeper order begins to emerge. Two great streams of color descend toward the earth like two currents of life. Between them shines a light that cannot be grasped or confined within any image. This is no accidental composition. The stained-glass window leads us to one of the most beautiful insights of early Christianity.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons taught that the Father creates and saves the world through His “two hands” — the Word and the Spirit. The Son and the Spirit are therefore not merely intermediaries between God and the world. They are the eternal mode of God’s presence within creation. Through them all things were made; through them all things are sustained; and through them all things are brought to their fulfillment.

Seen in this light, the whole cosmos appears as a space of divine activity. The world is neither a reality abandoned by God nor merely the stage of human history. At the heart of all events, the mission of the Word and the Spirit continues unceasingly. The Father never ceases to reach out to His creation.

For this very reason, mission does not begin with the Church. Before any human being sets out to proclaim the Gospel, God is already at work in the world. The Father sends the Son. The Father and the Son send the Spirit. The Church is born within this twofold sending and is drawn into the movement of God’s love toward the world. Mission is, first and foremost, God’s own work — Missio Dei.

The stained-glass window in Steyl expresses this truth with remarkable simplicity. The two hands of the Father seem to embrace a world still immersed in twilight. The darker colors are not merely artistic elements of the composition. They evoke a human history marked by sin, suffering, and unbelief. Yet darkness does not occupy the center of the image. At its center stands light.

This light calls to mind the words of our characteristic prayer:

“May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the Light of the Word and the Spirit of Grace, and may the Heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all people.”

This is not merely a pious wish. It is a profession of faith in the God who continually acts within the world and leads it toward its fulfillment.

Today, too, we are invited to participate in this same mystery. We are not the owners of the mission; we are its servants. The Father still stretches out His two hands toward the world. He still sends the Word and the Spirit. And the Church, like Arnold Janssen, is called to become a transparent sign of this presence among the nations, to become the Father’s hands for the world today.

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Member of the Editorial Team of the website VivatDeus.org. In 1985, he entered the Society of the Divine Word in his native Poland. He completed his OTP experience in Argentina. He worked in Spain, where he earned a licentiate in biblical theology. From 2003 to 2022, he worked in Russia, teaching at the seminary and serving at St. Olga Parish in Moscow. Currently, in Poland he is dedicated to deepening his understanding of the spiritual history of Arnold Janssen and to spiritual animation.