Copyright: © 2001 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

Some seasons ago, a movie named Quest for Fire could be seen in theatres -- you can still rent the video. It was no high art, but I liked it. It featured a small band of primitive, cave-dwelling homo sapiens who know how to use fire, but do not know how to make it. When they lose their precious single flame, they send three of their number to search for new fire -- encountering a sabre-toothed cat, a herd of mammoths, and various other perils along the way. (Hey, I even liked The Clan of the Cave Bear!)

There's a magic moment in the movie when the trio meets a band of more advance humans who can produce fire by rubbing sticks together. Our three adventurers watch with open mouths and wide eyes as their hosts bring a flame of fire to life in front of them, and subsequently teach them to do the same. You got a sense, in that scene (I at least got a sense) of how staggeringly important such a primitive technological leap must have been, in its day and context.

That "lighting of the new fire" in the Easter Vigil never fails to move me in the same way. And who will express surprise when worshipers are similarly moved at a Christmas Eve Candlelight Service?

You might expect that candles (or lamps) originally served a simple utilitarian purpose in the worship of the church: Presiders, worship leaders and readers had to be able to see what they were doing at sedilia, ambo, or table, and candles or lamps simply provided illumination for their ministries in public worship. However, the symbolic meaning of light has been obvious to religious sensibilities since the beginnings of the human story, we can suppose, evoking a sense of the sacred almost universally in human hearts.

It is, in any case, instructive for the purposes of Christian worship to keep firmly in mind the utilitarian function of candles and lamps: to illuminate the task at hand. To surround the lighting or extinguishing of candles with elaborate ceremony -- except in such circumstances as the Lucernarium of Evening Prayer and the Easter Vigil -- is to betray a misunderstanding of the functional role that candles are meant to play in Christian worship. Similarly, the size and scale and placement of candles (or lamps) within the worship space must be determined chiefly with reference to this utilitarian purpose.

The question to be asked, therefore, before any symbolic or aesthetic consideration is this: Do these candles, of this size and scale, in this position, truly illuminate the worship leader's task? In the case of an electrical power failure during an evening service, the consideration can be critical.

Candles are utilized in Christian worship with the above considerations in mind, and according to two further sets of constraints: first, the honouring of the traditions surrounding the observance of the Church Year; and second, the honouring of the integrity of the various forms of public worship utilized on a given occasion.

Honouring the Church Year in our worship suggests the principle that major festivals and seasons require more light, more candles, and greater ceremonial opulence than do the less festive occasions and seasons. We can naturally expect to find more candles, for example, in our public worship at Easter and Christmas, than during Lent or Advent.

The specific resources in your specific parish will largely determine the scheme you develop for the use and placement of candles in your specific parish situation. Nevertheless, a careful reading of the following paragraphs will, I hope, illustrate the principles at stake, even if your resources, in your specific situation, are quite different from those described here. And experimentation and innovation, from year to year, will always be possible and indeed necessary. Granted the above qualifications, let me suggest here some specimen examples:

For the Season of Advent (when the liturgical colour is blue) two candles or lamps might be placed on the altar retable or reredos, flanking the altar cross or crucifix symmetrically; or, asymmetrically, both candles together at one side of the retable, the cross or crucifix at the other side. I'd refer to candles on the altar's retable or reredos as "prayer lights", and I'd light them, following the scheme suggested here, whenever there's a service of worship in this place. And, of course, you'd light the candles of an Advent wreath on successive Sundays.

For the Christmas Season (when the colour is white): six candles on the retable or reredos, either placed symetrically, as above, with three on each side of a central cross/crucifix, or assymmetrically, as above. Further: In my days as Dean of the Chapel at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, I provided a set of twenty-four "wall lights" for our worship space: votive candles in clear glass holders affixed by wire brackets to the protruding bricks of the "east" wall behind the altar, twelve on each side: a shimmering wall of light that is very handsome on "high" occasions such as Christmas and Epiphany and Easter. Your parish might develop or invent some such similar embellishment, with multiple candles or lamps, for these supremely "high" occasions.

For the Season after the Epiphany, sometimes called "Ordinary Time," Epiphany Two through Eight (when the colour is green): two candles, as above.

For the Transfiguration and its Octave (white): six candles, as above, plus the "wall lights."

For Ash Wednesday (black): two candles, as above.

For the Season of Lent (purple): two candles, as above.

For Good Friday (no colour: all paraments and banners removed); all candles removed as well. When the rubric for removal of all paraments, linens, banners, candles, greens, crosses and crucifixes is scrupulously observed (see note 10 at LBW / ME page 23), the visual effect is stunning, and does not fail to move worshipers, especially if the people have become accustomed, throughout the year, to some such system as the one proposed here.

For the Easter Season (white): six candles, plus the "wall lights," as above.

For Pentecost and its Octave (red): six candles, plus the "wall lights," as above.

For Trinity Sunday and its Octave (white): six candles plus the "wall lights," as above.

For the services in the Season after Pentecost (green: "Ordinary Time" once again): two candles, as above.

For services on Christ the King or Reign of Christ and its Octave (white): six candles, plus the "wall lights," as above.

For services on all Lesser Festivals (red or white): six candles, but no "wall lights," as above.

You get the message, gentle reader, in the paragraphs above? The more "solemn" the season or occasion, the more light.

Honouring the integrity of the various forms of worship suggests the principle that the fuller liturgical forms require more candles and more ceremonial opulence; conversely, the less-rich liturgical forms require fewer candles and more austere ceremonial. For example, we can expect to find more candles and richer ceremonial opulence at a service of Holy Communion than at a service of Responsive Prayer.

Once again, let me propose here a scheme or system for honouring our various worship forms, fully aware that the resources in your particular setting might be quite different.

For services of prayer and praise alone, such as Responsive Prayer 1 (LBW page 161), Responsive Prayer 2 (LBW page 164), and The Litany (LBW page 168), candles are placed at the altar retable or reredos, following the guidelines pertaining to the Season noted above (the "prayer lights'). Further, processional candles ("torches") are placed at the kneelers or sedilia, flanking them, where they serve to illuminate and give honour to the leadership of such prayer services. There are no candles at ambo or altar.

For services of word and prayer , such as the Service of the Word, the Service of the Word for Healing, the Order for Corporate Confession and Forgiveness, and the Daily Office (Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Prayer at the Close of the Day), candles are placed at the altar retable or reredos, following the guidelines pertaining to the Season noted above (the "prayer lights"). And, two processional torches are placed at the ambo, flanking it, to illuminate and give honour to the reading. Note also the specific use of the Vesper candle at Vespers (Evening Prayer): the so-called "Lucernarium" or "Service of Light." See rubric 1 at LBW page 142. There are no candles on the altar.

For services of prayer and word and meal, that is, the Holy Communion: Candles are placed on the altar retable or reredos, following the guidelines pertaining to the Season noted above (the "prayer lights"); the two processional torches are placed at the ambo, flanking it (what we might call the "Word lights"); and the two altar candles (the "mass lights") are placed on the altar mensa ("table") to illuminate and give honour to the Holy Supper.

Of course, candles do not remain in place during public worship unless they are utilized, that is, lit. When candles are not utilized at a given position for a specific service, they are removed beforehand from the worship space and left in the sacristy.

And when the worship space is not being used for public worship, it is appropriate that the configuration of candles for the previous service of worship may remain in place, unlit, until the next occasion of public worship.

A word about the so-called "sanctuary lamp": The sanctuary lamp is frequently encountered in Roman Catholic church buildings, where it is understood as a sign of the presence of a "reserved host"; that is, communion bread set aside in a previous eucharist, but unconsumed, and "reserved" in an altar "tabernacle" for distribution at some later time to sick and shut-in communicants. There seems to me to be no persuasive reason to introduce a sanctuary lamp in church buildings that do not have them; Roman Catholic churches are being remodeled, since Vatican 2, so as to remove the sanctuary lamp -- and its tabernacle -- altogether, at least to a side chapel.

A word about the so-called "Christ candle": It should be noted that there is no historic precedent whatever for the introduction of a so-called "Christ candle" in any of the church's rites. The "Christ candle" is still another product of recent American free-enterprise marketing inventiveness. In the tradition of the church, there is the Vesper candle, a large, unadorned candle used in Evening Prayer; and there is the Paschal candle, a decorated version of the Vesper candle used during the Easter Vigil, the Easter season, and at baptisms and funerals, and positioned, unlit, at the font at other times (see above). And there are other candles utilized to illuminate or honour various ministries in worship. But beyond that, the so-called "Christ candle" represents only yet another example of a kind of cultural inflation we should strive to avoid in Christian worship.

Equally, there is no precedent in the tradition of the church for the so-called "wedding" or "unity candle" -- another product of recent American free-enterprise marketing inventiveness. Besides being for the most part "tacky," such recent adumbrations to worship only serve to clutter our sensibilities with "tenders that are not true sterling."