WEYMOUTH -- To Michael Martino, the art of making stained-glass windows is not only a trade, but a vocation.

Speaking to The Pilot on Aug. 19, Martino said he sees himself as a craftsman first and foremost, but as a Catholic, he "considers it a tremendous privilege that the Lord has given me the opportunity to do this."

Martino has worked as a stained-glass artist for over 50 years, beginning when he was an apprentice in Milan. He now has a studio in Uxbridge. For the past decade, he and his team have supplied St. Francis Xavier Parish in Weymouth with all of its stained-glass windows. Most recently, his studio designed and built a window depicting Blessed Father Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, which was installed in the parish in February. The window is four feet wide and 16 feet tall, and has over 1,000 hand-cut, hand-painted pieces of glass. Martino and his collaborators worked off and on over the course of a month to create the window.

"It's a reminder of how much we can do if we work with God, and God's grace, to work through us and to the people that we touch as priests," Father Kenneth Cannon, pastor of St. Francis Xavier, told The Pilot on Aug. 16 as he stood in front of the gleaming window.

Blessed Father Michael McGivney (1852-1890) ministered to immigrant Catholics at a time of rampant bigotry toward both groups. Some of the families he ministered to had lost their fathers, and therefore, their primary source of income. So, he established the Knights of Columbus as an insurance program for them. The Knights also provided a Catholic counterpart to fraternal organizations, such as the Freemasons.

"His ministry was very important," Father Cannon said. "His generation of priests, they all died young, in their 40s or 50s. They were basically worn out."

Father Cannon commissioned the window, and the Knights of Columbus St. Francis Xavier Council #5027 raised the money for it through fundraisers, such as meat raffles, with the help of an anonymous donor.

"It's an honor to have our council representing the Blessed Father McGivney window," Grand Knight Tom Goode told The Pilot on Aug. 20.

"I think it's beautiful," Goode added. "From what the other guys were saying, it puts a smile on their face as soon as they walk into the church."

Martino's collaboration with St. Francis Xavier Parish has lasted for over a decade. When the pastor was about to receive stained-glass windows for the first time, the plan was to commission windows honoring American saints. Then-pastor Father Charlie Higgins collaborated with an art teacher at St. Francis Xavier School to design the windows' unique look, emphasizing polygons and straight lines over more traditional filigree.

"They didn't want it overly ornate, they wanted it contemporary," Martino said.

Martino's studio began by making windows of Sts. Francis Xavier and Kateri Tekawitha, and what Martino called "the two popes up front" (Sts. John Paul II and John XXIII).

"We gave it our all as artists and craftsmen," he said.

When Father Cannon became pastor at St. Francis Xavier, Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Blessed Father McGivney had recently been beatified.

"I thought it'd be good to put at least two more American saints in, and it would be sort of a nice bookend to the two popes at the other end." Father Cannon said.

The fact that Blessed Father McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus out of St. Mary Parish in New Haven, Connecticut, was a special point of pride for Father Cannon.

"To have a chance to put in a fellow New Englander here as a saint, in a church that was trying to honor the American saints, that was a good thing," he said.

"I admire what he's done," Martino said of Blessed Father McGivney. "Especially for the poor and needy. It's amazing what he accomplished."

Recently, when repairing stained glass at St. Agatha Parish in Milton, Martino made sure to "swing by" and see his work at St. Francis Xavier. Looking at the windows once more, he said, allowed him to see them in a new light.

"I thank God many times and say, 'Lord, why me?'" He said. "I'm a blessed man to be able to do these things."