CANDLES
246
CANDLES
Candles Left at the Houses of Dis-
tinguished Visitors (MS. on the
Council of Constance, Univer-
sity of Prague)
lated the city of Constantinople. In the Greek
Church it was called 'TnixTravT-n toO Kvpiov, the meet-
ing (occursus) of the Lord and His mother with Simeon
and Anna. The Armenians call it: "The Coming
of the Son of God into the Temple ", and still keep it
on the 14th of February (Tondini di Quaracchi, Calen-
drier de la Nation Armenienne, 1906, 48); the Copts
term it 'Presentation of the Lord in the Temple"
(Nilles, Kal. man.. II, 571, 643). Perhaps the decree
of Justinian gave
occasionalso to the
Roman Church (to
Gregory I?) to in-
troduce this feast,
but definite infor-
mation is want-
ing on this point.
The feast appears
in the Gelasia-
num (manuscript
tradition of the
seventh century)
under the new title
of Purification of
the Blessed Vir-
gin Mary. The
procession is not
mentioned. Pope
Sergius I (687-
701) introduced a
procession for this
day. The Gregor-
ianum (tradition
of the eighth
century) does not
speak of this procession, which fact proves that
the procession of Sergius was the ordinary "sta-
tion", not the liturgical act of to-day. The feast
was certainly not introduced by Pope Gelasius to
suppress the excesses of the Lupercalia (Migne, Mis-
sale Gothicum, 691), and it spread slowly in tin- Wesl ;
it is not found in the "Leetionary" of Silos (650)
nor in the "Calendar" (731-741) of Sainte-Genevieve
of Paris. In the East it was celebrated as a feast
of the Lord; in the West as a feast of Mary; although
the "Invitatorium" (Gaude et ketare, Jerusalem, oc-
currens Deo tuo), the antiphons and responsories re-
mind us of its original conception as a feast of the
Lord. The blessing of the candles did not enter into
common use before the eleventh century; it has noth-
ing in common with the procession of the Lupercalia.
In the Latin Church this feast (Puriftratio B.M.V.)
is a double of tin- second class. In the Middle Ages
it had an octave in the larger number of dioceses; also
to-day the religious orders whose special object is the
veneration oi the Mother of God (Carmelites, Ser-
vites) .iihI many dioceses (Loreto, the Province of
Siena, etc. i celebrate the octave.
Kiit mi:, // reiburg, 1906), 128; Duchesne,
rln i liau II m :tnp, lr. I I .. .ri.lun , l'.'ll I ; Pm-hsc, Surranirnlari. n (Minister, 1S9J); Iloi.ivi.et, Fusli Mariani (Freiburg. 1892),
is
Blessing of Candles and Procession. — Accord- ing to the Etonian .Missal the celebrant after Tierce, in stole and cope of purple colour, standing at the
epistle side of I he altar, blesses the candles (which must be of beeswax!. Having sung or recited the five orations prescribed, lie sprinkles and incenses the
candles Then he distributes them to the clergy and
laity, whilst the choir sings the canticle oi Simeon,
" Nunc dimittis". The antiphon " Lumen ad revela- tionem gentium et gloriam plebis tuse Israel" is re- peated alter every verse, according to the medieval
custom of Binging tin antiphons. During the pro- cession which now follows, and at which all the par- takers cany lighted candles in their hands, the choir sings the antiphon " Adorna tlialamum tuuni, Sion ", co sed by Si. John of Damascus, one of the few
pieces which, text and music, have been borrowed by
the Roman Church from the Greeks. The other anti-
phons are of Roman origin. The solemn procession
represents the entry of Christ, who is the Light of the
World, into the Temple of Jerusalem. It forms an
essential part, of the liturgical services of the day, and
must be held in every parochial church where the
required ministers can be had. The procession is always
kept on 2 February even when the office and Mass
of the feast is transferred to 3 February. Before the re-
form of the Latin liturgy by St. Pius V (1568), in the
churches north and west of the Alps this ceremony
was more solemn. After the fifth oration a preface
was sung. The "Adorna" was preceded by the anti-
phon "Ave Maria". While now the procession is
held inside the church, during the Middle Ages the
clergy left the church and visited the cemetery sur-
rounding it. Upon the return of the procession a
priest, carrying an image of the Holy Child, met it at
the door and entered the church with the clergy, who
sang the canticle of Zachary, "Benedictus Dominus
Deus Israel". At the conclusion, entering the sanc-
tuary, the choir sang the responsory, "Gaude Maria
Virgo" or the prose, "Inviolata" or some other anti-
phon in honour of the Blessed Virgin.
Chevalier, Ordinaires de Loan (Paris, 1S97) ; P.L., CXLVII, 185; Hoevnck, Liturgie von Augsburg (Augsburg, 1S99); Preisen, Liber Agendarum eccl. Slexnoicensis (Paderbom, 1898); Schonfelder, Ritualbucher (Paderborn. 1904).
Frederick G. Holweck.
Candles. — The word candle (candela, from eandeo, to burn) was introduced into the English language as an ecclesiastical term, probably as early as the eighth century. It was known in classical times and de- noted any kind of taper in which a wick, not uncom- monly made of a strip of papyrus, was encased in wax or animal fat. We need not shrink from admitting that candles, like incense and lustral water, were commonly employed in pagan worship and in the rites paid to the dead. But the Church from a very early period took them into her service, just as she adopted many other things indifferent in themselves, which seemed proper to enhance the splendour of religious ceremonial. We must not forget that most of these adjuncts to worship, like music, lights, perfumes, ablutions, floral decorations, canopies, fans, screens, bells, vestments, etc. were not identified with any idolatrous cult in particular; they were common to almost all cults. They are, in fact, part of the natural language of mystical expression, and such things belong quite as much to secular ceremonial as they do to religion. The salute of an assigned number of guns, a tribute which is paid by a warship to the flag of a foreign power, is just as much or as little worthy to be described as superstitious as the display of an assigned number of candles upon the altar at high Mass. The carrying of tapers figures among the marks of respect prescribed to be shown to the high- est dignitaries of the Roman Empire in the "Notitia Dignitatum Imperii". It is highly probable that the candles which were borne from a very early period before the pope or the bishop when he went in pro- cession to the sanctuary, or which attended the trans- port of the book of the ( Sospels to the arnbo or pulpit from which the deacon read, were nothing more than an adaptation of this secular practice.
The use of a multitude of candles and lamps was undoubtedly a prominent feature of the celebrat ion of the Easter vigil, dating, we may believe, almost from Apostolic times. Eusebius (Vita Constant., IV, xxii) speaks of the "pillars of wax" with which Constantino transformed night into day. and Prudent ins and ot her authors have left eloquent descriptions of the bril- liance within the churches. Neither was the use of
candles in the basilicas confined to those hours at which artificial light was necessary. Not to speak of the decree of the Spanish council at Elvira (c. 300),
