Seventh Sunday of Easter
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
	The paschal candle, blessed at the Easter Vigil, carried in procession into the darkened church, and aflame with the light of Christ to be passed hand to hand to renew our baptism, burns for the fifty days of Easter whenever we gather as Christ’s risen body. In the last fifty years, we have grown to see this candle as the sign of Christ’s enduring presence with us. Before then, it was often seen more as a kind of signpost pointing backwards to events in Christ’s life. Therefore, in some places, on the fortieth day after Easter, in order to portray the disappearance of Jesus at the Ascension, the candle was hidden.
	Now we see the paschal candle as a sign of the great baptismal season of grace and it remains in a prominent place throughout the entire fifty days. We do know of some churches that did not hide the candle after the Ascension. In England before the Reformation, the candle was left in place for fifty days, since on Pentecost Eve there was a vigil, and the candle was used to consecrate the waters of the font. In Salisbury cathedral, the candle was thirty‑six feet high, and in Westminster Abbey weighed over three hundred pounds. On Pentecost, the candles were melted to make tapers for the funerals of the poor.
—James Field