In the Clarity of this Bright and Holy Light: The Paschal Candle as a Resurrection Sign

The final installment of We Sing the Glories of This Pillar of Light, a series on paschal candle and its use throughout the liturgical year.

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Paschal Candle
Basilica of Saint Mary, Minneapolis, MN

Christ is the light of the world. This profound truth is the most basic meaning behind every single candle we burn in our sanctuary. But do they have meaning beyond that?

To my mind, that is the driving question at work in our use of the paschal candle.

There are, to be sure, plenty of other issues at work. There are other candles burning in the sanctuary, and the name we give to them will affect how and when utilize them. Different placements for each candle will exert different pressures. A prominent candle raises more questions when it is unlit, and our tendency will be to light it more frequently. Likewise, a candle suspended from the ceiling, just above our line of sight, might burn out without being noticed. An oil candle -- one which can be used and refilled without ever losing its shape or stature -- might entice us to more frequent usage.

These other issues feed into the larger question: what do these candles mean? In the very first post of this series, I cited to Anita Stauffer's Altar Guild and Sacristy Handbook, where she claims that the evening light and the paschal candle have different meanings: "The paschal candle is a resurrection symbol, while the evening prayer candle is a more general reminder of the light of Christ." But that's where she leaves it; the claim is far more nuanced than a single sentence. After all, Christ is the light of the world ultimately because of his Resurrection. Why not use the paschal candle as a marker of Christ's illumination of the evening darkness?

Moreover, we proclaim every Sunday to be a "little Easter" -- that is, every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection -- and so why limit the paschal candle to only the Great Fifty Days, the Sacrament of Baptism, and the rite of Christian burial? Why not let the candle shine every Sunday as a reminder of Christ's light through Resurrection?

I doubt anyone will be surprised to read that I have not changed my position. I still hold that the Church should only light the paschal candle during the Fifty Days of Easter, at Baptisms, and during funerals -- and, possibly, at All Saints'. (Indeed, I've become more convinced that the paschal candle should not be used at Christmas to replace the Christ candle. Our paschal candles come laden with visual symbols of the Passion and Resurrection. While the Lamb of God might make sense during Christmastide, a lily does not.)  We have so many rich symbols of Christ's light sitting disregarded. Let us explore these symbols by bringing them to the foreground and allowing them to shine brightly rather than opting for a single multi-purpose year-round candle. If we turn the paschal candle into a generic "everyday use" item, we do so at the risk of undermining both its function and the function of every candle it would be replacing. Worse still, if we use the paschal candle as an "all-purpose feast day" candle, lit on any day of unique significance -- Reformation Sunday, Transfiguration, Ash Wednesday -- it becomes all the more muddled. Rather than pointing to the Resurrection, it becomes the sign of nothing more than that the paraments have changed color. 

Too often, the issue is reduced to "specialness." Such an argument lacks the nuance so often required by good theology and is often used to advocate against weekly celebration of the Holy Eucharist -- a position I cannot support. "Special" things maintain that quality even when done frequently -- and indeed, some acts become more special the more often we do them. Who among us would say that kissing a spouse, reading to a child, or enjoying a conversation with a close friend is "less special" if done on a daily basis?

Rather, it comes down to an issue of unique meaning and function.

Before proceeding, let me make a crucial distinction -- and one I've been trying to put into terms since jumping down this rabbit hole. What's the difference between "special" and "unique"? In this context, I would suggest we often use "special" to mean something along the lines of "imbued with extra meaning or significance." "Unique," on the other hand, might be defined as "possessing a quality not found in other, similar items." So some things might be special but not unique (eating a meal with friends or family). Others might be unique but not special (a chipped coffee mug). Still others might be both (a favorite toy from childhood).

Under these definitions, then, every candle in a parish is special in that they are set apart for the worship of the Triune God. The candles at the Altar, the red lamp burning in the sanctuary, the paschal candle, the votives in the iron stand, the candles in the Advent wreath, and the mass-produced paraffin numbers we use for Christmas Eve and the Easter Vigil: they are all special in that they carry meaning beyond that of ordinary candles at home. Each of them represents the light of Christ in the world.

Each of those candles, though, has a unique meaning. The Advent candles mark the weeks passing towards Christmas, building the amount of light in the darkness of winter. Their companion, the Christ candle, marks the arrival of the Nativity. The sanctuary lamp reminds us of God's eternal presence (and, depending on where you are, Christ's presence in the Sacrament reserved in the tabernacle/aumbry): a constant light shining even in an otherwise-vacant space. The Vespers light is Christ's light illuminating the night.

The paschal candle's unique meaning points very specifically to the Great Vigil of Easter. Lit from the new fire on the night in which our Lord passed over from death into life, its light very specifically points to the Resurrection -- not as an over-arching emphasis (as we do every Sunday) but in very concrete terms. This candle, unlike all others, is inscribed with signs of Christ's victory: the Cross, the lily, the Paschal Lamb, the Alpha and Omega. Five grains of incense are placed in its wax. 

Week-in and week-out, we proclaim our Lord's Passion and Resurrection. This is the very nature of Christian worship. But for fifty days, from sun-down on Holy Saturday until Pentecost, we proclaim our Lord's victory in our boldest terms. We turn our entire liturgy to that cause, adding our Allelulias and making every hymn one of joyful adoration. This candle -- more so than any other in our sanctuaries -- points us to that wonderful season of the Easter feast.

The function of the paschal candle, then, is to carry that meaning to other times when we look specifically and concretely to the Resurrection.

The paschal candle carries all of that extra meaning with it into the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. When we usher people forward to be brought into the Body of Christ, we do so quite literally in the light of Easter. The paschal candle reminds us that in Baptism, we join with Christ in passing from death into life.

The same candle brings hope into our funerals. When we bury our beloved kindred in Christ, we know that they are only asleep for a time but that they, promised life everlasting through their Baptism into Christ, will pass into life everlasting.

All of our candles show the light of Christ shining in the darkness, with the subtle hints of the Resurrection echoing underneath. The paschal candle brings the subtext of the Resurrection to the foreground. We cannot, through overuse, rob it of that meaning. We cannot make it "less special." We can, though, undercut its function.

The paschal candle acts as something of a liturgical highlighter, calling our attention to the Sacrament of Baptism and the Church's burial rites while also drawing forward the meanings of Easter. It makes us mindful of the connection between Christ's Resurrection and our own hope for the Life Everlasting, bringing forward a visual manifestation of a single common thread.

Through over-use, we drown out these connections, obscuring their meaning. The paschal candle will always continue to bear its meaning; the difference is in our own ability to discern its significance.

The Light of Christ: Use of Candles at the Great Vigil, Christmas Eve, and Vespers

Part of We Sing the Glories of This Pillar of Fire, a series on the use of the paschal candle throughout the liturgical year.

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Advent Wreath
sans Christ candle

There has been a certain amount of conflation between the paschal candle lit during the Great Vigil of Easter and the Christ candle lit on Christmas Eve. Presumably to emphasize symbolic continuity, many parishes have adopted the custom of using a single candle which is lit at the Easter Vigil (or perhaps at the Sunrise Service) and at the reading of the Nativity on Christmas Eve. The Christ candle, as part of the Advent wreath, is a much later tradition -- some fifteen hundred years, at least -- than its paschal counterpart. Despite the chronological chasm between the two flames, there is a certain amount of sense to one candle which connects the two greatest feasts. That same single candle serves as both the crown of the Advent wreath (though physically distinct from the wreath) and as the candle lit from the new fire of the Paschal Feast. In these parishes, that single candle is interchangeably called both the Christ candle and, less frequently, the paschal candle.

(As an aside: I wonder how many parishes, having conflated the paschal and Christ candles, firmly insist on wearing blue in Advent and violet in Lent to properly distinguish between the seasons?)

Paschal Candle
Cathedral of Saint Paul, St. Paul, MN

Compounding the conflation of the Christ and paschal candles, there is also the candle used during Vespers. Our evening liturgy begins with the Lucernarium, a service of light in which we illuminate the darkness with a tall candle while singing a hymn proclaiming that God illumines the world (the Phos Hilaron). At the Easter Vigil, we gather in darkness and illuminate the night with a tall candle while singing a hymn proclaiming that God illumines the world (the much longer Exsultet). The Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent even suggests that there may be some ancient connection between these two acts:

Others see in this an allusion to the ceremony of the paschal candle. However, the Lucernarium may have had, at that time, some analogy with the ceremony of Holy Saturday, and the hymn could thus be adapted to one or the other. In the "Old Gallican Sacramentary" (Thomasi, "Opera", VI, 395) we find for Holy Saturday an oratio ad duodecima, designed to celebrate the light as well as the Resurrection, which would seem thus to favour our hypothesis. St. Basil also speaks of a hymn being sung at the moment when the torches were lighted, doubtless the famous hymn--"Lumen hilare" (cf. Cabrol, l. c., 47-8). [Caveat: I am well aware that New Advent is outdated, and I don't know the current state of research on connections between the Vigil and Lucernarium.]

Add to these similarities that the Altar Guild and Sacristy Handbook tells Lutherans, "[The candle used at Vespers] should be almost as large as the paschal candle," and only offers the distinction that it should be white and unadorned and only offering the distinction that this plain candle is "a more general reminder of the light of Christ."

It's a recipe for confusion. We have three large candles which play significant roles in evening liturgies, and their basic meanings overlap: whatever extra nuances exist, all three of these lights indicate to the assembly that Christ is the light of the world. Even in terms of ritual action, all three of these candles are used to distribute light from a central source to smaller tapers. It's immediately apparent that these three candles are similar, but how are they different?

Our liturgical texts do us a disservice by not fully exploring the idiosyncrasies of liturgical symbolism. They state that the candles are not interchangeable but fail to adequately explain why -- or worse, leave the issue after simply stating a firm rule. As a reader and a liturgist, I leave Stauffer's Altar Guild book wondering why the candle used during Vespers is not a reminder of Resurrection. I've spent a lot of time thinking through these issues and have come to my own conclusions. But how many of our altar guild members, acolytes, and folks in the pews are left wondering why sometimes we have extra candles? We owe it to our parishioners to have these discussions out in the open, to discuss them at workshops for our acolytes, when meeting with the altar guild to talk over Easter arrangements, to point out these holy objects in our preaching.

Paschal Candles: Why Not Every Sunday?

As is so often the case, one of my seminary classmates has pushed me to think longer and harder about this topic (thank God for faithful colleagues).

She asks:

Ok, for the sake of argument, didn't Martin Luther say that every Sunday is a "little Easter"? So, why not light the Paschal Candle every Sunday? We celebrate Christ's passion and resurrection with each Holy Eucharist. Thoughts?

Bishop J. Neil Alexander (former Bishop of Atlanta, current dean of the School of Theology at Sewanee, and, like me, an alum of LTSS) discusses this in one of his books, Celebrating Liturgical Time. Essentially, his point is that while every Sunday is a "little Easter" and that the theology of the Resurrection permeates every Divine Service throughout the year regardless of seasonal and thematic overtones, that we still mark Easter proper with special distinction -- pre-Paschal fasting during Lent, the Triduum, the Vigil, extra acclamations, and the like. These distinctives set Easter apart as a sacred time among sacred times. Some of these markers (in this case, the Paschal candle) carries further into the rest of the year.

It's similar to the point Phil Pfatteicher makes about the "priesthood of all believers" -- that all Christians are baptized into the ministry of offering prayers and participation in sacramental worship, but the Holy Spirit and the Church call deacons, presbyters/priests, and bishops to ordained ministries of Word, Sacrament, Service, and Order (to be as broadly ecumenical as possible). The call to ordained ministry does not negate the ministry in which all Christians share, but rather furthers it. Just so, the year of "little Easters" culminates in the holiest time of holy times -- the Paschal Feast.

I suggest that it is good and proper to maintain certain distinctive elements, including the Paschal Candle, but not to such a degree as to make them "off-limits" throughout the rest of the year. The Paschal Candle, then, functions as something of a Resurrection exclamation point, making certain feasts stand out through the year.

By way of comparison, imagine if we took "Alleluia" to such an extreme -- that we used it all throughout Easter, but then excluded it from our Christmas liturgy, or if we did not abstain from it during Lent.

All of that being said, there is an argument to be made for using the Paschal Candle throughout the year, and frequent usage does not rob an item or action of its "specialness" or its meaning. We can probably count this one as adiaphora.

Light Your Paschal Candle This Sunday

All Saints' Day is this Sunday. Be sure to light your Paschal Candle.

It's a surprisingly controversial statement, to be sure. The official guidance from the US Conference of Catholic Biships is that the Paschal Candle is extinguished at Pentecost, and then removed (completely) from the Sanctuary unless for Holy Baptism or for a funeral.

In his seminal Manual on the Liturgy for the Lutheran Book of Worship, Philip Pfatteicher holds to the same position: that the Paschal Candle should not be used outside of the Great Fifty Days (with the exceptions of Baptisms and funerals), and it should never be used as the Christ Candle in the Advent wreath.

Guidelines from the Episcopal Church and the ELCA speak volumes by their silence: no other time outside of Easter, Holy Baptism, and funerals are addressed.

There is a certain logic to this: Easter is the marker of the Resurrection, and so the use of the Paschal Candle at funerals makes sense. And Baptism was, at one point, possibly, maybe kind of restricted to the Vigil. Using the Paschal Candle at "off-season" Baptisms makes sense as a way of emphasizing the continuity between the Sacrament as it is celebrated at the Great Vigil and throughout the rest of the year.

But it is exactly this connection to Resurrection that makes the Paschal Candle such an important symbol for use on All Saints' and All Souls' Days services. In her Altar Guild and Sacristy Handbook, S. Anita Stauffer points out that "the Paschal Candle is a resurrection symbol" (p. 19; ironically, she does this while discouraging its use during Evening Prayer).

The light marks our hope in the Resurrection of Christ. We cling to this hope on the first two days in November. We pray for the Faithful Departed specifically because we hope that Easter will lead to the Resurrection of the Body. We hope that the light which pierces the darkness of Holy Saturday will pierce the darkness of our sorrow. We hope that the promises made in Baptism will hold true through the grave. The light that pierced the darkness at the funeral is also the light in which we hope on All Saints' and All Souls'.

All Saints' and All Souls' are the Easter season erupting into the Ordinary Time of early November.

And maybe, just maybe, our liturgy is dynamic enough to accommodate our faith.