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Much of the incredible love of God for us is expressed in symbols. Look at the Paschal Candle carefully, because it is an important symbol. It met you at your baptism; it will escort you at your funeral when you are put into the earth to resurrect to a greater light—that of Jesus Christ!
After the Vigil Mass of Christ’s Resurrection, it will burn at the altar until Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is sent to us.
We need this symbol especially these days, for deep down in all our hearts we walk in darkness.
Have you lit the Christ candle in your heart? With it, you walk in light.
The answer to our darkness of today is faith, which we interiorize by prayer. Faith is that candle of Christ that we allow to burn in our hearts so as to walk by its light.
But we are human—small, frightened. We must pray; inwardly we must pray constantly to the Lord to give us faith. That is one gift that the Lord never refuses.
Keep that Easter candle trimmed in your heart; keep it always lit so that no matter how dark the environment, you will have faith, you will have light.
Excerpted and adapted from Season of Mercy (2011), pp. 93-94, available from MH Publications
