You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, sprouts. Today is Friday, April 30th, 2021.

Now, all week we have been going on this new journey where we look at the things in our churches with fresh eyes and begin to understand better the things that we see, the things that we experience,

and the things that we do when we are at Holy Mass.

So this week we have talked about the Holy Water font and how it reminds us of our own baptism.

We talked about genuflection.

We talked about the altar and the altar stone.

And we are going to conclude this week's look at our churches by talking about candles. Now, candles aren't probably that strange.

You know, we have candles in our homes. We have candles on our birthday cakes. But I want you to

realize that it is interesting and meaningful

that we use candles at church. Now, there are usually, when Mass is being said, several

candles lit. At a minimum, there is a candle on each side of the altar. Usually there are candles lit on a back

altar or kind of behind the altar. And now during the Easter season, there is the Paschal

candle, which is front and center in most churches. This candle was lit for the first time at the

Easter vigil. It will burn all throughout the Easter season and it will be relit at key times, like at baptisms or at funerals.

So there's all these candles burning.

So why?

Why do we use candles?

I mean, we don't need to, right?

We have electricity.

In the early church, they used candles,

of course, because they didn't have electricity, because they wanted to be reading the Holy Word of God.

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