Candles

Lighted candles are a sign of joy and honour.  We have candles on a birthday cake in honour of the person whose birthday it is and to show it is a joyful occasion.  So candles are carried by servers at a Sung Eucharist for the same reason.  The first reference there is to lighted candles at the singing of the Gospel is made by St Jerome who, writing in Bethlehem in the year 378 AD, says that, “throughout all the churches of the East when the Gospel is to be read lights are kindled…not to dispel the darkness but to exhibit a token of joy…and that under the symbol of … light that light may be set forth of which we read in the psalter, ‘Thy word is a lantern unto my feet and a light unto my paths’ “. (2)  So the candles held at the Gospel are a sign of joy and honour and they show that the teaching of the Gospel (the Word) is a light to guide us in our lives.  And they express our prayer that “the light of the glorious gospel of truth may shine throughout the world” (3)