One of the many symbols of Easter is the Easter candle. Thanks to our wonderful church decorators, our parish has an Easter candle, beautiful and prominent, in each of our three churches during the season of Easter. Because the Easter candle is a symbol of resurrection, new life, and Jesus coming to save us from darkness, we also use the Easter candle at other special times of prayer, like baptisms and funerals.
Today, I’d like to answer a question that a few parishioners have asked me. We bought a new Easter candle for SSP church in 2024, but we kept using the prior year’s Easter candles at SJB church and IHM church. Why did we do that?
For me, the Easter candle is special and a powerful symbol not just because it is big and beautiful, but most of all because we bless it, light it, and lift it in prayer for the first time on the special night of Holy Saturday, at the climax of Holy Week, at the Easter Vigil. What a cool moment of prayer, when the deacon lifts high the Easter candle and proclaims in a dark church, “Light of Christ!” “Thanks be to God,” we all respond, and then the light of the Easter candle spreads to the candles we hold, and the dark church lights up with the light of Christ. As best as I can tell, the Easter candle is a powerful symbol primarily of its connection to that moment in our history of a community, not so much because of its appearance. The lit Easter candle connects us back to that specific moment in that specific year when we lit this candle for the first time and remembered the light of Christ rising from the dead, defeating the darkness.
So I thought it would be better in our three churches to use Easter candles that actually were part of our prayer at an Easter vigil, even if they came from past years, rather than just buy big fancy looking candles for each of our churches this year, even though only one of them would be used at our Easter vigil. I thought that would make our Easter candles more authentic symbols. For most of us, the changes we’ve been through have sad parts and hard parts, and for some of us, one of those hard parts was celebrating the Easter vigil in a new way, different than the familiar place we loved. It makes sense to me that this change was hard. At the same time, I felt — and I hope some of you felt, too — that there was something beautiful and powerful in the moment when we prayed together at our parish’s single celebration of the Easter vigil. I loved seeing our diverse community gathered there with good hearts, seeking God.
Part of the change we’re experiencing is figuring out how to do liturgy well in our new context, one parish with three churches. Our parish strategy highlights our worship together and our liturgy: “As a united parish with three churches and a school, welcome and love newcomers with transformative weekend worship, and then lead young, old, and in between to take their next step as disciples of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church.” All three of our churches are important for our mission, vision and strategy, and so we want all three of our churches to be beautiful, clean, and supplied with what’s needed for transformative worship.
On the topic of Easter candles, my best guess was that using Easter candles that really were blessed, lit, and lifted at past Easter vigils would be the best way to honor this symbol and have it strengthen our worship. What do you think?
As far as I know — please let me know if I’m wrong! — the Catholic Church has no specific rule or guideline on what should be done, and it would have also been acceptable to buy three big fancy candles and use them in our churches, even if only candle was actually used at our Easter vigil. So in future years, I’d be open to revisiting my decision. If we keep to the same path we used this year in future years, we’ll have to think about how to share around our three churches the specific Easter candles that we use year by year. This year we bought an extra tall Easter candle in the hope that it might last for three years.
Reminder that there’s an open Liturgy Meeting on Sunday, April 21, at noon in the Fr. Keaney Center on the IHM campus. All are welcome to come and share their thoughts, concerns, suggestions on the topic.