The Symbolism of Candles

From useful lamp to sacred sign

At the beginning, Christians invented nothing: they lit their evening assemblies with oil lamps and tapers like everyone else. But very early, useful lighting took on meaning. The evening light, which might have remained a mere household object, became a sign: Christ, the sun that never sets, present among his own when night falls. It is this shift — from useful lamp to sacred sign — that grounds the whole symbolism of the candle.

Saint Jerome's testimony is decisive because it distinguishes exactly the two registers. When candles are lit in broad daylight to proclaim the Gospel, it is plainly not in order to see: it is to honour and to manifest joy. The flame says something that the daylight alone cannot say.

"Throughout all the churches of the East, when the Gospel is to be read, candles are lit, even though the sun is already shining: certainly not to dispel the darkness, but to give a sign of gladness." — Saint Jerome, Against Vigilantius, 7^[2]

That is why the liturgy treats the candle as a bearer of meaning, not as a consumable. It is blessed, carried in procession, inclined, sung. The flame that "rises" speaks of prayer ascending; the wax that "is consumed" speaks of self-offering; the light that "gives itself without being divided" speaks of the communication of grace. All this calls for a noble matter: not any melted fat, but one precise wax, chosen for what it signifies.

The threefold reading: wax, wick, flame

Liturgical tradition has fixed a reading of the candle that has become classic, taken up by the old Catholic Encyclopedia as it sums up centuries of commentary: a beeswax candle bears within it three nested symbols.

"The pure wax, extracted by bees from flowers, symbolizes the pure flesh of Christ received from His Virgin Mother; the wick signifies the soul of Christ; and the flame represents His divinity." — The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907–1912), art. "Altar Candles"^[3]

This reading is no late, isolated gloss: it is the precipitate of a long meditation. The whole candle thus becomes an image of the whole Christ — body, soul and divinity — giving himself as he is consumed. The same Catholic Encyclopedia, in its article "Candles", adds the ecclesial register: if the great paschal candle figures Christ, the "true light", the smaller candles lit from it figure Christians illumined by him^[4]. A single object thus speaks, at once, of Christ the light and of the Church receiving his brightness — exactly what the Easter night procession will stage, when all the flames of the assembly are lit from the one paschal candle.

Why beeswax?

This symbolism, "proper to beeswax alone", as the same source specifies, explains a requirement many of the faithful do not know: the liturgy is not content with any candle. A decree of the Congregation of Rites of 14 December 1904 fixed the rule precisely: the paschal candle, the candles for the blessing of baptismal water and the two candles required for Mass must be made of beeswax "for the greater part" (ex cera apum saltem in maxima parte), the other candles "in notable quantity" of the same wax — and it is forbidden to make liturgical candles solely of tallow, stearin or paraffin^[5].

Why this insistence on the bee? Because wax was held to be the product of virgin bees: worker bees were believed not to mate, drawing their honey and wax from flowers alone. Wax thus became the most perfect natural sign of Christ's virginal flesh, born of a virgin mother without a human father. This typology is ancient: as early as the end of the 5th century, Ennodius of Pavia (d. 521) "speaks of the chastity of the laborious bee as a figure of the Saviour's virginal birth, and of the lighted candle as an offering consecrated to God"^[6]. Before him, around 378, Saint Jerome already mentioned a "praise of the candle" (laus cerei) involving the symbolism of bees and wax^[7]. The choice of matter is therefore no craftsman's affectation: it is theological. The candle speaks of Christ down to its very substance.

The liturgical candle has a history — that of an everyday object become an object of worship. Tracing it shows that its symbolic charge was not decreed all at once, but laid down layer upon layer, from the catacombs to the modern rubrics.

The lucernarium and the first lamps

The first Christians sanctified the daily gesture of lighting the evening lamp. This rite, the lucernarium (from lucerna, the lamp), blessed the new light at dusk while giving thanks for Christ, the "joyful light": this is the meaning of the Phos hilaron, the oldest Christian hymn preserved outside Scripture. The evening light, which pushes back the night, is read as a sign of Christ dispelling the darkness of sin and death. Hence the lasting dignity of lamps in worship: what was domestic necessity becomes thanksgiving.

Candles on the martyrs' tombs

Very early, Christians surrounded their dead — and first their martyrs — with lights. The old Catholic Encyclopedia recalls that Saint Cyprian of Carthage was buried in 258 "praelucentibus cereis", "with candles burning before" his body^[8]. Lighting lamps at the tombs and memoriae of the martyrs was so widespread that it drew objections. The priest Vigilantius judged it superstitious, inherited from paganism; Saint Jerome answered him that there was nothing blameworthy in it:

"There is no harm in simple folk and devout women lighting candles in honour of the martyrs. […] What, done for idols, was detestable, becomes acceptable when done for the martyrs." — Saint Jerome, Against Vigilantius, 7^[9]

The distinction is clear: the light does not adore the martyr; it honours him and confesses, over his tomb, Christ's victory over death. This is the direct root of the candles that would later burn before relics and images — a gesture whose right use is detailed in the article on votive candles.

Constantine and the "pillars of wax" of Easter night

The peace of the Church, in the 4th century, gave the symbolism of light a new amplitude. The historian Eusebius of Caesarea reports that the emperor Constantine had the city illumined on Easter night with "pillars of wax" and countless lamps, turning night into broad day^[10]. The Easter Vigil is, par excellence, the night when the abundance of lights proclaims the Resurrection: "the use of a multitude of candles and lamps was undoubtedly an eminent feature of the celebration of the Easter vigil, and that, it is believed, almost from apostolic times"^[11]. It is in this soil that the great paschal candle would be born.

The acolyte and the candlestick

Lamps at last entered the very structure of ministries. At the ordination of acolytes, the Church hands the candidate "a candlestick with a candle", to signify his charge: to bear light in the service of the altar. The old Catholic Encyclopedia refers here to the statutes known as those of the Fourth Council of Carthage^[12]. The candle is therefore no decoration: it is entrusted as a mission. To bear the light is to serve Christ the light.

If a single candle had to be chosen to understand all the others, it would be the paschal candle. Upon it is concentrated the densest of all liturgies of light: in the order of signs, it is the risen Christ in person, and all that wax can say is there said, engraved, sung.

The new fire and the procession: "The Light of Christ"

The Easter Vigil begins in the night, outside the church, with the blessing of a new fire — a fire kindled afresh, the sign of an absolute beginning. From this fire the celebrant lights the paschal candle. Then the deacon carries the great candle into the church, still plunged in darkness, and stops three times to sing, his voice rising a tone each time: "Lumen Christi", "The Light of Christ", to which the assembly answers: "Deo gratias", "Thanks be to God"^[13]. At the first acclamation, the priest lights his candle from the paschal candle; at the second, the clergy; at the third, all the faithful — and the church fills little by little with light, flame after flame. The sign is limpid: one single light, Christ's, communicates itself to the whole Church without ever diminishing.

The engraved signs: cross, Alpha and Omega, the year

Before the procession, the celebrant prepares the candle by tracing and pressing into it a series of signs — a rare gesture in the liturgy, which seldom inscribes an object. With a stylus he first engraves a cross, then above it the Greek letter Alpha and below it the Omega; finally, at the four corners of the cross, the four figures of the current year. As he performs these gestures, he says:

"Christ yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. All time belongs to him and all the ages. To him be glory and power through every age for ever." — Roman Missal, Easter Vigil, preparation of the paschal candle^[14]

Each sign is a confession of faith. The cross says that light is born of sacrifice. The Alpha and the Omega, first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, say that Christ is "the beginning and the end of all things" (cf. Rev 22:13). And the engraved year — a remarkable fact — anchors the eternity of the Risen One in this precise time, that of the assembly at prayer: the candle proclaims that the Lord of time and the ages reigns over this very year.

The five grains of incense: the five glorious wounds

The celebrant then presses into the wax, upon the engraved cross, five grains of incense: four at the ends of the cross and one at its centre. They figure the five wounds of the crucified Christ — in both hands, both feet and the side — become, through the Resurrection, glorious wounds. The formula spoken says so:

"By his holy and glorious wounds, may Christ the Lord guard us and protect us." — Roman Missal, Easter Vigil, preparation of the paschal candle^[15]

The joining of incense and wounds is no accident: the spice pressed into the wax says that the wounds of the Crucified have become, in glory, a fragrant offering rising to God. Here we find, transposed, the same grammar as the five crosses engraved on the consecrated altar, likewise a sign of the five wounds — see The symbolism of the altar; and the same logic of incensing developed in The symbolism of incense.

The Exsultet: the "praise of the candle"

Once the candle is set up near the ambo, the deacon sings the Exsultet, that long liturgical poem opening Easter night. Its technical name designates it precisely: Praeconium paschale, "paschal proclamation", or again Laus cerei, "praise of the candle". For this chant does not only praise the Resurrection in general: it addresses this very candle, this flame, as the sensible sign of the living Christ. The text, whose metrical structure dates its composition "perhaps to the 5th century, and no later than the 7th"^[16], first sings the night itself:

"This is the night of which it is written… O truly blessed night… when heaven is joined to earth and man is reconciled to God!" — Exsultet (Praeconium paschale)^[17]

It is also in the Exsultet that the most daring formula of the whole liturgy resounds, the "happy fault": "O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem" — "O happy fault, that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!"^[18]. The light of the candle becomes the hearth around which the central paradox of salvation is sung.

The praise of the bees (laus apium)

But the Exsultet does more: it blesses the flame and praises the bees that produced the wax. It is one of the very rare moments when the liturgy sings of an insect. The text of the Roman Missal retains to this day the mention of the wax "which the mother bee made":

"It is fed by the melting wax, which the mother bee made for the substance of this precious lamp." — Exsultet, Latin text: "Alitur enim liquantibus ceris, quas in substantiam pretiosae huius lampadis apis mater eduxit."^[19]

The wax is therefore no neutral fuel: it is the fruit of the labour of a creature presented as chaste and industrious, and that is why it can figure the virginal flesh of the Saviour. The candle, in burning, says that Christ consumes himself wholly in offering, and that his light — divided into a thousand flames throughout the assembly — is never diminished by it:

"We know now the praises of this pillar, which a blazing fire enkindles in honour of God." — Exsultet, Latin text: "Sed iam columnae huius praeconia novimus, quam in honorem Dei rutilans ignis accendit."^[20]

Thus the humblest of objects — a beeswax taper at the end of a wick — bears, on Easter night, the highest of proclamations.

Beside the paschal candle, unique and exceptional, burn at every Mass the altar candles. Their arrangement is not left to taste: it obeys a precise grammar, in which even the number carries meaning.

How many candles? Liturgical numerology

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal fixes the rule for every celebration:

"On or next to the altar are to be placed candlesticks with lighted candles: at least two in any celebration, or even four or six, especially for a Sunday Mass or a Holyday of Obligation, or if the Diocesan Bishop celebrates, then seven." — General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 117^[21]

The number of candles is therefore not decorative: it measures solemnity and manifests hierarchy. Two candles suffice for an ordinary Mass; four or six mark Sundays and feasts; seven are reserved for Mass presided over by the diocesan bishop in person. The more solemn the celebration, the more abundant the light — the flame makes visible the degree of the feast.

The bishop's seventh candle

Why seven for the bishop? The number is not arbitrary. Seven is, throughout Scripture, the number of fullness; and the liturgy readily sees in it the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and the seven spirits standing before the throne of God (Rev 4:5). When the bishop celebrates, he acts as a successor of the Apostles, the sign of the fullness of the priesthood: the row of seven candles manifests that fullness in light. The seventh candle — often placed behind the altar cross, at the centre — thus crowns the other six.

Cross and candles: framing Christ

The same norm prescribes, in the same breath: "there is also to be a cross, with the figure of Christ crucified upon it, on the altar or close to it"^[22]. Candles and cross go together. The candles do not surround an empty space: they frame the cross, that is, Christ offered. The light stands guard around the sign of the sacrifice. That is why, in the Roman tradition, the candlesticks stand symmetrically on either side of the crucifix: the flame escorts the Crucified as angels escort the throne.

The Gospel candles: joy advancing

A very ancient usage — the very one Saint Jerome defended — has lighted candles carried on either side of the book at the proclamation of the Gospel^[23]. Two acolytes flank the ambo with their torches. Here again, it is not a matter of lighting the reader: it is Christ who speaks in the Gospel, and the light advances to meet his Word as torches are borne before a king. The sign is so strong that the liturgy has kept it in broad daylight, against all logic of lighting.

The bugia, the prelate's candle

One last piece of the sanctuary lighting deserves mention because it is little known: the bugia (bugia), the small hand candlestick a minister holds near the bishop as he reads the prayers. Reserved by privilege to prelates, it may be used by a simple priest only by apostolic concession; and the bishop himself lays it aside on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, days when the whole liturgy strips itself of lights^[24]. The bugia recalls that to each degree of the hierarchy corresponds a regulated use of light.

Apart from the altar, one flame burns without interruption, day and night, where the consecrated hosts are kept. This sanctuary lamp is no ceremonial candle but a permanent lamp, and its symbolism is unique: it announces and honours the real presence of Christ in the tabernacle. The Code of Canon Law makes it an obligation:

"A special lamp which indicates and honours the presence of Christ is to burn constantly before the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Eucharist is reserved." — Code of Canon Law (1983), can. 940^[25]

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal specifies that, in accordance with traditional custom, this lamp is fueled with oil or wax^[26].

The flame that never goes out says that the Lord remains: to enter a church and see that small red light watching is to know, without a word, that the Presence is there. The symbolism proper to the tabernacle and its reservation belongs to another sign and another furnishing: it is treated in The symbolism of the tabernacle.

Through the year and through the Christian life, the candle changes accent according to the mystery it serves. One same wax speaks now of the joy of the Presentation, now of the illumination of the baptized, now of the mourning of Good Friday.

Candlemas: the feast of candles

On 2 February, the Church celebrates the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, popularly called Candlemas — the "feast of candles" (festa candelarum). Before Mass, the celebrant blesses beeswax candles, sprinkles and incenses them, then distributes them to clergy and faithful while Simeon's canticle, the Nunc dimittis, is sung with its antiphon:

"A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel." — Candlemas antiphon, after Luke 2:32 ("Lumen ad revelationem gentium")^[27]

Then the assembly advances in procession, lighted candles in hand. The meaning is transparent: "the solemn procession represents the entry of Christ, who is the Light of the world, into the Temple of Jerusalem"^[28]. Each of the faithful, bearing his flame, holds as it were in his hands the aged Simeon receiving the Child of Light. The blessing of candles only became general from the 11th century onwards^[29], but it fixed for ever the identity of this feast: the day when the light of the year is blessed.

Baptism candles: illumination

At baptism, after the water, the newly baptized (or his godparent) is given a candle lit from the paschal candle, with these words: "Receive the light of Christ." This gesture sums up the whole symbolism of the candle: the light of the Risen One, concentrated in the great Easter candle, communicates itself to each Christian. The Fathers moreover called baptism photismos, "illumination"^[30]. The baptized receives not only an invisible grace: he receives, in his hand, a flame — and the charge of keeping it alight. The properly devotional and personal dimension of this candle is developed in Why light candles?.

Tenebrae: the light withdrawn

Holy Week reverses the sign. At the office of Tenebrae, celebrated in the night, a series of candles set on a great triangular stand (the hearse) were put out one by one after each psalm, until almost complete darkness. The withdrawing light speaks of the Passion: the world sinks into night as Christ's death approaches. Here the candle no longer signifies by burning, but by going out — and the last candle, often hidden for a moment then brought back, already announces that the light is not vanquished.

Candles for the dead and unbleached wax

At funerals, candles burn around the coffin, and the paschal candle itself stands beside the deceased: the light of the Resurrection watches over the one who has fallen asleep in Christ. The liturgy nevertheless marks mourning in the very matter of the wax. For Masses for the dead as for the penitential days of Holy Week, yellow, unbleached wax is traditionally used^[31]: the light remains, but it is veiled, like the paschal joy still awaiting its full flowering. Here again the wax speaks — by its colour as much as by its flame.

The Middle Ages systematized this grammar of light. The great liturgist William Durandus of Mende (c. 1230–1296), in his Rationale divinorum officiorum, devotes long pages to the lighting of the church. For him, the candle sums up the threefold reading already met: the wax figures Christ's humanity, the wick his soul, the flame his divinity; and the lamps spread through the church figure the faithful, the "light of the world" (Mt 5:14), who must shine by their works^[32]. The candle offered and consumed thus becomes the image of the Christian life: a life that gives itself as it enlightens, that spends itself to produce light, and is fully itself only in consuming itself for others.

This intuition meets the deepest truth of the symbol: a candle fulfils its function only by disappearing. It does not hoard its wax; it surrenders it to the flame. That is why, from Easter night to the bedside of the dying, the Church has seen in this humble column of wax the truest image of her Lord — and of every disciple called to burn without holding back.

• Why light candles? — the devotional gesture: votive candle, prolonged prayer, right use and superstition.
• The symbolism of the altar — the table the candles frame, and its five crosses (the five wounds).
• The symbolism of the tabernacle — the eucharistic reservation before which the sanctuary lamp watches.
• The symbolism of incense — the five grains of incense of the paschal candle, and incensing.
• Why are churches oriented? — the light of the East and the orientation of prayer.
• The architecture of a cathedral — the place of light in sacred space.