Reredos of Our Lady of Light, Stone altar screen in Cristo Rey Church, Santa Fe, United States

The Reredos of Our Lady of Light is a stone altar screen over 25 feet high and 18 feet wide, carved in 1761 from soft white volcanic stone quarried near Pojoaque. Its reliefs are arranged in tiers: God above the Mother and Child at the crown, Santiago Matamoros flanked by St. Joseph and St. John Nepomuk, and St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Solano below. A central niche holds a stone slab depicting Our Lady of Light.

Governor Francisco Antonio Marín del Valle built La Castrense, a military chapel on the south side of the Santa Fe Plaza, in 1760 and brought masons from Zacatecas to carve the reredos, completed in 1761. Stone chips found at the site indicate the carving took place there. Bishop Pedro Tamarón y Romeral saw the chapel under construction in 1760, and Fray Atanasio Domínguez described it in 1776. After Mexican troops stopped using the chapel in the 1830s, it fell into disrepair; the U.S. Army repaired it in 1846 and used it as a storehouse. In 1940 the reredos was moved to Cristo Rey Church, built for that purpose.

The reredos mixes Jesuit and Benedictine figures with Franciscan ones, though Franciscans ran most Spanish colonial churches in New Mexico. St. John Nepomuk, protector of the Jesuits, stands beside St. Joseph, and St. Ignatius Loyola appears in the bottom row. The central niche now holds the stone slab from La Castrense's facade, showing Our Lady of Light rescuing a figure from Satan.

The reredos fills the east wall of Cristo Rey Church at 1120 Canyon Road, built in 1940 to house it. The stone is soft volcanic tuff, so look for the six half-relief medallions and the niche holding the La Castrense slab; traces of original paint survive in the recesses. The church is an active parish, so visits depend on its opening hours.

The stone slab now set in the central niche is not part of the 1761 carving: it once adorned the front of La Castrense and shows Our Lady of Light pulling a human figure from Satan's grasp. The reredos also mixes Jesuit and Benedictine saints into a New Mexico church built largely by Franciscans.