Flimmaking and storytelling is without question a very arduous and detail oriented craft. Most people will never know the hours that go into creating a visual story and all the many challenges that take place along the way. At the same time, to speak only of the difficulties would leave out the best parts! When I encountered the Emil Frei studio team, a family of four with their father still working in the daily mix, I felt as if I was with family members I had never met. We share so much in our passion for creating beauty that uplifts for Our King. So it was an immense joy for me to spend several days with this extraordinary studio of artists and craftsman observing a trade that goes back many centuries. I’ve filmed in churches all over the US and even abroad but I never really appreciated all that goes into creating the depictions of the holy narratives that adorn so many of our churches. Yes, it’s true, at the Holy Sacrifice of the mass heaven descends upon the altar, we go back in time to Golgotha and our present with Our Lady and others at his death on the cross and is, de facto, the primary focus. But the windows that illuminate our sacred spaces do not lack in their substance and purpose either.
In this story of Emil Frei & Associates their history and collection of work, which spans Europe and the US, is on par with the very best that has ever been produced in stained glass, and yet, the family that has been at the helm of these exquisite masterpieces and marvels of engineering drew me in even more. Stephen Frei, the current patriarch of the Frei dynasty of craftsman is a very talent man in his own right but the blessing of working with his children now as they take center stage in shepherding the family craft became even more compelling to me. I partnered with the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception to produce this story for their EWTN show, Living Divine Mercy available at: DivineMercyPlus.org. God desires to partner with us in all that we do. He delights in how we use the gifts and opportunities that he brings about in our time on earth for His greater glory and the salvation of all souls. As Stephen states, ‘It’s every father’s dream.’ I can only imagine that if God dreamed Stephen and his children must be one of them as they labor for love of God and man realizing that what they create, install and maintain will continue to inspire generations of other families just like the work has done so for them.
Emil Frei & Associates
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