Has anyone seen this?
I’ve Never Seen This
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Ineffective.. my understanding is blessed candles burning send particles into the air that have a repellent affect to “spirits that wander the world seeking the ruin of..,”
No but according to local small parish the insurance company won’t cover them if they leave the candle lit next to the tabernacle all week. The parish is only open on Sundays. The insurance companies wanted them to have the electronic candles
Insurance companies. Yes. There are more than one. Maybe it’s time to search for another carrier.
Real candles eventually burn out. How long to these electric candles last? They are essentially light bulbs.
At the cathedral church in Spokane WA.
My two cents: if its really for insurance reasons about leaving them unattended, change to tea lights that last maybe a few hours rather e-candles.
May not be quite the same as lighting a bit old votive candle, but at least it would be real.
I’ve seen them a few times. Aesthetically annoying, but God hears prayers.
All our votives were like that, our new(ish) pastor is replacing them with candles. We have one set of actual votive candles so far, in front of an icon of our Lady of Perpetual Help. They’re not beeswax, but much better than incandescent.
According to our Pastor, the insurance story is just an excuse. Our insurance company doesn’t care, but It’s easier (and waaayyy cheaper) just to turn them off every night than to replace candles.
Oh, and posting a price of $2 is just tacky! As Pinky said, God hears prayers … whether you flip a switch or not. Put your offering in the poor box where it’ll do some good and pray before the tabernacle.
at the local church… it’s the act of devotion that’s important, I believe, and the matter is less important (with the exception of the host in Holy Communion)
No. I have known a pastor who would not have votive candles in his church. “It’s a fire hazard. Puts smudges on the walls”. The music program in his parish was ordered to please the music director, who recruited no choir and played Oregon Catholic Press ditties on an upright piano. Which ever shirt-tail wrote the man’s obituary thought we needed an inventory of his views, including his objections to priestly celibacy, his objections to the teaching on contraception, his preference for ordaining women, and his fancies about ‘liturgical renewal’. I once gave him some data on how the population of seminarians (per capita) varied wildly from one diocese to the other, and he could not have been more indifferent.
Votive candles instead of electric lights for the same reason we have candles around the altar. Candles have a religious significance in our history completely lacking in Mr. Edison’s invention.
I have seen them. They are an eyesore.
They don’t really look like candles, even at a distance.
I have also seen a video of a fireplace displayed on a wide screen TV in the lobby of a nursing home. It didn’t give off any heat, but at least it looked and sounded real.
The idea of leaving a donation for a votive candle was to pay for the actual cost of the candle. But does it cost 2 dollars to pay for the electricity or a lightbulb? Maybe the cost is only intended to deter some people from flipping on all of the switches. More light bulbs, more prayers.
There is less danger of fire if the church is made entirely of stone.
” it’s the act of devotion that’s important… matter is less.. ”
@ Bob,
would Poland Spring straight from the bottle make a difference at the Font?
My diocese, for its faults, has self-insured for decades, and so I fortunately have yet to see any parish–even the most progressive–replace candles with votive lightbulbs. Pace some of the commenters here, I suspect it might not be only about insurance, but I bet it’s at least partly about insurance
The parish 12 miles down the road from the one to which I referred had votive candles. It also had a tile floor and no carpeting. I don’t think it was an insurance issue. (I was told by an old priest that insurance costs were one consideration in choosing which of a set of parishes to close).
Well, the Buddhist temple in Japan which housed the eternal flame burned down a couple weeks ago, so maybe there is something to this fire hazard business?
Here in Chicago, most churches use real candles but I have seen this. I don’t like it. And I spend a lot of “candle money” but not for this.
holy & blessed: chrism… water… palm fronds.. ashes… incense… candles…
electric candles are a farce.
Shhhh.
Don’t tell the the organizers that the burning torch for the Olympic Torch Relay might have to be replaced by a flashlight, and the Olympic Flame by a big spotlight. Or a flashing neon sign.
I remember seeing them at Holy Hill as a child.
It’s been many years since I’ve been there, so I don’t know if they ever switched back to real ones.
I am NOT saying I would do this now but Little 10 Year-old Guy almost certainly would flip all the switches, or light the ones that showed the initials GM (this is the mind set that got me apprehended by Sr Mary Margaret so many times). Guy, Texas
There’s a part of A Canticle for Leibowitz where electronic lighting is reinvented after hundreds of years of technological regression following a massive nuclear war. This happens at a monastery, and one of the monks speculates that before the war every church must have used these lights in place of candles, which his superior dismisses as childish and ridiculous.