E SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

THE CEREMONIES OF HIGH MASS. 155
and presenting the cruets of wine and water. But at
High Mass we usually have no acolytes
in the strict
sense ; laymen not in orders perform their duties.
This mention of an acolyte s distinctive office in
lighting candles, enables us to say a few words on the
use of lights in a liturgical service. That light has a
symbolical use is almost self-evident. It represents to us
our home in Heaven, "where "
perpetual light shines;
and it is the symbol of our Divine Saviour, who
describes Himself in St. John (xii. 46) as the "
light of
the world." Christ is the" light of "the
light," bright
"
ness of His Father s glory (Heb. i. "
3), a light for the
revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people
Israel
"
(St. Luke ii. 31), He is "the bright and morning
star" of the Apocalypse (xxii. 16), and the "light
shining in darkness." (St. John i. 5.)
Amongst the early Jewish Christians unquestionably
"
the Paschal Candle typified Him who is the True
Light which cometh into the world." At the blessing
of the fire on Holy Saturday the Church prays to God,
" the Eternal Light and Creator of all that He
light,"
would bless the light so that we "
may be thereby
inflamed with love and be enlightened by the fire of
the Divine brightness." The feast of the Purification
is called in English Candlemas, in reference to the
candles which are blessed and carried in procession
before Mass. They remind us of Holy Simeon s words
when, with the Divine Child in his arms, he declared
Him to be the light of the Gentiles and the glory of
Israel. The Church in blessing the candles teaches us
that she regards and employs earthly light as a symbol
of that heavenly light in which spiritual truth is read.
She prays in words, which necessarily lose in translation,
"
as the
to "Jesus Christ, the true light," to grant that