Reverence is a laudable goal, but perhaps using music and decor would be preferable. The candles at Easter have a specific theological function inherent in the liturgy. There's nothing like that in the Christmas liturgy.

At the same time, I think Midnight Mass (like most evening Masses) is much more prayerful without all the lights on full blast. It actually feels like nighttime - imagine that! There is much more sense of vigil - keeping watch in the night. Even without giving out individual candles, you could keep the lights low and put lots of candles around the church.

If the candles at the Easter Vigil have a theological purpose, why do we blast on all the electric lights right after everyone lights their candles? The rubrics only say that "lights are lit throughout the church" not "every possible light MUST be lit". In attempting to recover a sense of mystery and stillness, reflection, etc., candlelight can be a valuable means. I also see nothing wrong with handing out individual candles at Midnight Mass, beyond logistics, and as long as quasi-liturgical prayers and candle blessings or candle-lighting instructions are not disrupting the liturgy. In a place without electricity, would it be somehow wrong to hand out candles before a liturgy?

Midnight Mass is, however, *not* a vigil Mass.

Midnight Mass is a Mass in the middle of the night...and I think it is helpful for us as human beings to feel that it is, in fact, nighttime when we participate in a nighttime liturgy. Adam - we certainly do know how to function in low lighting. Case in point - candlelight dinners and NICE restaurants with tasteful lighting as well as tasteful food.

The Easter vigil candles have a specific liturgical purpose. However, candles are at all times a legitimate source of light.

Sometimes a candle is just a candle.

candlelight dinners and NICE restaurants with tasteful lighting as well as tasteful food.

Percentage of your congregation that has engaged in this activity at least once in the last year?

Hang on - I have to ask: Are some posters here actually arguing that there is some theological dictum that militates against the use of candles during the liturgy?

Or that there is some kind of rubrically-appropriate level of light for liturgies, according to Roman practice? So, it is inappropriate to not turn on every light in the building for solemnities? This is utter nonsense. If people choose to use candlelight rather than electric light, that is perfectly fine. And I dare anyone on this forum to come up with official liturgical legislation to the contrary.

Adam - I'm guessing nearly everyone has been to a nice-ish restaurant in the past year, at least, most everyone with an anniversary, birthday, wedding reception or other special event to celebrate. But even if they haven't, I think most people would instinctively recognize "class" on walking into a nice restaurant. Lighting is one key cue in that regard.

And yes, the liturgy is not a restaurant meal - did that REALLY have to be said? I'm making a connection between one human experience and another. Lower lighting (especially candles) says "special - mysterious - removed from daily life - transcendent" most church lighting I see nowdays says "Wal-Mart". Restaurant owners know this - I wish liturgists/pastors/musicians would think about it more. Even hideous churches can be quite nice and conducive to prayer if we just turn the lights down.
This goes along with electronic amplification of everything said or done during the liturgy, and our current obsession with hearing and seeing everything liturgical in explicit detail. That's participation, right?

Just to be clear:

If I could have ALL liturgies in darkness and candlelight, I would do so.
The traditional form of the Roman Rite has the priest refer to the Mass as "an evening sacrifice," and Pickstock argues convincingly that, regardless of the clock time, all liturgies take place in "the evening."


I was saying that the actual reason this sort of thing isn't more common is that:

-when you suggest it, people will pre-emptively complain about not being able to see

-when you try it, people will complain about not being able to see (even if they can see just fine, and even if there isn't anything that needs to be seen)

-most of the time, no one thinks to do this sort of thing anyway

-when people do think to do anything related to light-changes during a liturgy, the people who think to do it are usually otherwise busy during the liturgy (flapping arms, puching buttons, deaconeering, whatever) and so there is a 90-second explanation of how/when/what to do given to some 75 year old usher minister of inhospitableness who can barely tell whether the lights are on or not. This person then misses the cue and/or panics, and the rest of the liturgy is punctuated with various lights intermittently being turned on or off. Following this, whoever came up with the idea vows to never ever suggest such a thing in the future.

-the on/off lighting panic also happens when there is no cue to miss, and when the lighting is preset before the liturgy, and the intention is to keep it that way the entire time. This happens because some damn old fogey usher busy-body Martha-like soul will "notice" the "problem" about halfway through the liturgy it take it upon himself to "fix" the "problem."

Candles only.
No microphones.
No instruments (organ if necessary).

Sounds like a Catholic Church to most people ... except for the Catholics.

Candles everywhere? I hope the insurance company doesn't cancel your church policy.
Someone falls in dim light? Chisel, Finagle and Swindle - attorneys at law will be visiting you. Ambiance? Who brought Martha Stewart to mass? Better check the altar arrangements to see if the feng shui is right.

I WISH that the average Catholic liturgy was what the mainstream culture views it as.

I JUST had this conversation with my organ teacher this weekend!

How about putting those servers with candles in swan boats and criss-crossing the sanctuary? Put the smaller servers in a small boat and switch to a larger boat with larger servers as they near the congregation. Perhaps a nice Wagner piece would add a bit of theatrical flair.

Some churches have more lighting control than others. One that I frequently assist at allows you to control everything, so for our monthly men's nights, we keep the hanging lights in the nave quite low, the side altars a little higher, and the sanctuary moderately bright (basically, bright, but not too bright where it would be distracting compared with the rest of the church).

On top of that, we do add extra candles around the church, such as votive candles lighting the confessionals or the little tea candles in the windows. This way it "feels" candlelit, without actually needing to have hundreds of candles. We get away with about 30-50, and it's really beautiful.

Before (daytime, full lights, no candles)



After (late evening, candles, adjusted lights)

The Midnight Mass at my place is televised. It'll be interesting to see the amount of lighting required, as on a regular Sunday Mass I'm pretty much blinded by spotlights, and that's while it is light outside.

Candles at Midnight Mass?
I certainly loved "Silent Night" with candles, when I was Lutheran. And I've played at Methodist Christmas eve services with candlelight singing. Somehow it doesn't seem Catholic to me now! : )

You have to light a room somehow. Is it a violation of the true meaning of liturgy to think about how to do that in a way that is conducive to prayer?

Was it candles in early churches? It was not. It was olive oil lamps as in the great church at Constantinople. Candles? Is outrage! Next you be wanting Protestant pews to rest your sacred hineys, instead of standing with the risen Christ as holy Council of Nicaea commanded. Double outrage!

At St. Mary Major last Sunday (celebration of Immaculate Conception), 6 or 8 fellows in suits each held a candle in front of the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer. My guess is this is a fairly old custom there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBgNrreh8L8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpvHaH36anA

I also feel that the Christmas vigil or midnight mass should not echo the Easter vigil. Let them be different things. I have seen, however, churches with slightly dim the lights with lots of candles in the sanctuary.

I have no dog in the candles fight; nevertheless, the reference to Catherine Pickstock does baffle me. Her writing is way above my pay-grade, intellectually speaking, me being like Winnie-the-Pooh "a Bear of Very Little Brain"; but is she not, in fact, an Anglican? I don't mean Anglican as in Ordinariate fully adhering to Rome, I mean Anglican as in ... Anglican.

Has she in fact converted to Catholicism? My understanding - please correct me if I am mistaken - is that she has not done so and does not contemplate doing so. In which case, well, not wanting to be rude - let alone Feeneyite - or anything, but her authority to set down rules for the rest of us on the liturgically correct celebration of a Catholic Mass is derived ... whence exactly?

Adam - ridiculous, yes, and also very ironic. In my general experience, more liberal and progressive liturgists have tended to embrace things like candlelight services. The same people that rail against medievalisms and anachronisms in the liturgy. Yet, candlelight services (which tend to be very popular) are a deliberate anachronism, introduced for the purpose of making the environment more contemplative and suitable for prayer. And traditionalists seem to be generally suspicious of low lighting as some kind of liturgical innovation.

I can only repeat - sometimes a candle is just a candle...

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2013/07/the-contribution-of-catherine-pickstook.html

Indeed, that is the other liturgical use of candles by the PIPS. But that's not as a *liturgically* envisioned option for Midnight Mass. (Putting art & environment issues aside.) Also, there's not a ton of singing being done by the PIPs while this is going on; typically, at most it's Lift Up Your Heads Ye Mighty Gates, and I will observe that people either make a choice to sing or to hold a candle but not both at the same time unless they are musicians who know that hymn by heart.... (it's actually my memory of Presentations past in this regard that is the foundation of my practical concern in this regard....the problem now is that fewer and fewer Catholics know traditional hymnody by heart, and we weren't starting from a high number to begin with!)

In Catholic Germanic countries, 2/2 indeed was when Christmas greens would be taken down (and attentions turn more directly to Carnival-like preparations for Lent). I knew German-American families back in the 1970s who kept their trees and greens up until that date. My family typically took decorations down on the last weekend in January (the tree and creche went up after the little children went to bed on Xmas Eve).

Okay, thank you, Mr. Wood. I had not seen previously the NLM / Jeffrey Tucker article you cited concerning Dr. Pickstock (or even heard of it) and I am happy to report that I have now read it.

Even I, with my room-temperature I.Q., was able to comprehend this essay. That is no doubt because Dr. Tucker writes English which I can follow, whereas the one time I attempted to read a book actually written by Dr. Pickstock herself, I mistook it for a newly unearthed Heidegger manuscript translated by the Internal Revenue Service.

What I did not obtain from Dr. Tucker's commentary, no doubt as a result of my own invincible ignorance, was an answer to my original question: Is Dr. Pickstock a baptized Roman Catholic or is she not? But I presume I am not going to get a response on this thread to that particular inquiry, so I shall cease commenting here, and allow others to discourse upon the fascinating original subject of ... candles.