Description of The Paschal Candle
For congregations that use a Paschal candle it is the largest candle in the worship space. In most cases today the candle will display several common symbols:
- The cross is always the central symbol, most clearly identifying it as the Paschal candle
- The Greek letters alpha and omega signify that God is the beginning and the end (from the Book of Revelation)
- The current year represents God in the present amidst the congregation
- Five grains of incense (most often red) are embedded in the candle (sometimes encased in wax "nails") during the Easter Vigil to represent the five wounds of Jesus: one in each hand, one in each foot, and the spear thrust into his side.
In the mediaeval church Paschal candles often reached a stupendous size. The Paschal candle of Salisbury Cathedral was said to have been 36 feet tall. Today, in the United States and Southern Europe (e.g., Italy and France) the candle is approximately 2 inches in diameter and 36 to 48 inches tall; in Northern Europe the candle tends to be shorter in height (19 to 24 inches) and wider in diameter (3 to 5 inches).
Read more about this topic: Paschal Candle
Famous quotes containing the words description of the, description of, description and/or candle:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
““Not to die on the straw at home,
Those hands to close these eyes,
That is all I ask, my dear,
From the old man in the skies.”
Day-break and a candle end.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)