It’s a fact that, every day, many candles, novenas and candle-lights are burned without interruption in shrines all over the Catholic world. Each one does so according to the impulse of his or her heart, often with a strong and significant spiritual movement, carrying a personal intention, a request or thanksgiving, a supplication or intercession. Others combine their usual prayer or even the Eucharist with this simple gesture.

For Catholics, the candle brings us closer to the true light of the world, which is Christ. His death and resurrection are expressed in the Paschal candle. Through baptism, we have become “sons of light”, called to walk in the light.

Accessible to anyone, burning a candle is a way of replacing or extending our prayer, of bringing us closer to and in solidarity with the person we are thinking of. The candle we light for the deceased is there to say: “You are no longer here, but through this light, I feel your presence. It is through this light that I express the love I have within me and that will always remain in my heart”.

A candle offered in a gesture of trust can express, for example, a sense of God’s paternity, love and mercy. It is also a symbol of existence, fragile, precarious and self-offering.

It can help to purify, deepen and pacify. It also helps you to concentrate and gather your inner self. The imagination fixes on the flame, which becomes a support, an act of recollection.

The candle brings light, it enlightens, it warms, it expresses what is important for Man.