Stained glass brings home to troops

In a previous war, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" captured in song the painful separation from family that is the inevitable by product of humanity's violent divisions. This Christmas finds the nation bogged down in another war, meaning that another generation of soldiers will be home only in their dreams. A Roman Catholic priest from Boston is doing something to bring a taste of the holidays to them and other troops who may be away from the front but are nonetheless away from home.

The Rev. Timothy Butler is on loan from the Boston Archdiocese to the US Air Force, currently deployed as a major in Kyrgyzstan with the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing. Tomorrow at midnight Mass, he will celebrate the birth of a boy called the king of kings against the distinctly unregal backdrop of a military tent serving as a chapel. But it will be imbued with a bit of Christmas magnificence in the form of stained-glass windows, not actual windows, but photographs of beautiful, kaleidoscopic glass flashed on a slide show screen.

Projected to the music of Christmas hymns, more than 100 photographs tell the Nativity story, from the annunciation by the angel Gabriel to the birth in Bethlehem.

"It creates a sense of the sacred," Butler said in a telephone interview. "Our chapels in the military are generally very sterile" and denuded of images and icons, because they must serve a variety of denominations. "Beautiful colors and imagery lend a sense of the sacred to an otherwise very plain space."

He should know. Butler, who has been on active duty 14 years, first displayed the show two years ago while deployed to Kyrgyzstan after collaborating in its creation with New Jersey photographer P. Neil Ralley. Ralley, a specialist in photographing stained glass, has never met the priest, who first contacted him as Butler pondered his 2004 Christmas Eve Mass.

"I was sitting in the [chapel] tent thinking, how are we going to decorate this place," Butler said. "We had a couple of fake Christmas trees. . . . I was thinking it was not very sacred. We had a small crucifix with an arm broken off."

Then it struck him that his unit's Protestant chaplains projected hymn lyrics on a screen during their services in the tent. "Something that would be comfortable for both Catholics and Protestants would be stained glass windows," he reasoned.

On the computer, he found stainedglassphotography.com, Ralley's website. "His images were by far the best," the priest said. Butler wrote the photographer to ask permission to use some of his work.

Ralley, who doesn't belong to a church but calls himself a spiritual man, already had provided his photography to naval chaplains, and he and Butler assembled a Nativity-themed show from Ralley's photo library and set it to seasonal music.

Ralley says he used windows from obscure churches such as Calvary Episcopal in Summit, N.J., as well as several in England.

"I tend to photograph churches that are a little bit off the beaten track," he said. "I tend to steer clear of the big cathedrals. . . . For the most part, they've been photographed to death."

His website also points out that stained glass in remote churches is often beautiful and has been "one of the least accessible art forms, often only viewable in situ and then not usually by many people. . . . In America, in addition to problems of remoteness [of many small-town churches], there are also problems of access, as churches are generally locked when services are not being held, and this renders casual visiting impossible. Furthermore, when viewed in situ, it is often extremely difficult, if not impossible, to see all the details which stained glass windows have to offer."

In 2004, Butler used the photos at Masses for both American troops and their Spanish allies. Last year, he was stateside during the holidays. This year, the slides will not only accompany his two Christmas Eve Masses, but four Protestant services that night . (Not the 25th, however. Daylight doesn't permit projecting the photos.)

"Some of my buddies in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, have downloaded the slide show and indicated to me they intended to use it," Butler said. Neither he nor Ralley can track precisely how many units and troops view the show.

But Ralley has one known fan among Butler's civilian superiors. Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley's Christmas card this year features one of the New Jerseyan's photos.

Questions, comments or story ideas can be sent to spiritual@globe.com.