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

Hey there, sprouts. Today is Tuesday, May 18th, 2021. We are continuing with our tour of our churches.

We're looking around the outside of the church right now, especially where the congregation sits. Yesterday, we talked about the stations of the cross, which hang on the walls of the church right now, especially where the congregation sits.

Yesterday we talked about the Stations of the Cross, which hang on the walls of the church.

Now, today we're going to talk about vigil lights or votive candles. In most churches, there is a place where there is like a large rack of candles. Maybe they're the little ones. Maybe they're

the big votive candles. But they're just sort of all set together. Maybe you've seen people go

and slip a dollar or two in there as an offering, light a candle and then kneel down and pray.

So have you ever understood why those candles are there or what that person is doing?

Well, to understand that, we need to talk about what a vigil is.

These are oftentimes called vigil candles because when we light one, it is like keeping a visual for a special intention.

So here's what a visual is. Let's say that we have someone who is very, very sick and they're in the

hospital. We're worried perhaps that they will die or they will need help. So even through the night, we say,

I'm not going to sleep tonight. I'm just going to sit by this person. I'm going to hold their

hand and pray. Well, sitting by them all of that time is called keeping visual, keeping watch.

It means that we're there watching and waiting and praying. That is what

a visual is. So when we go into the church and we light a visual or a votive candle,

then we are saying this is a particular special intention. Maybe this special intention is for someone

who is ill. Maybe it's for something you're really worried about and asking God to help you with.

Or maybe it's for one of those big problems in our world. One of those big evils we're just praying

so hard, God will come and deal with. Whatever it is,

it's important that when we light that candle, we have that specific contention. We light the

candle, we kneel down and pray. But then, of course, a candle is going to burn longer than you

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