Votum

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This picture intrigued me from the moment I laid eyes on it.  I remember my 16 year old self visiting amazing cathedrals in Barcelona and being transfixed by the rows of unattended prayer candles.  There was something about the visual effect of humble votives consigned to petition a God not contained by vaulted cathedral ceilings that haunted me.

Now, after living more of life, I see something achingly beautiful in prayer candles.  All together, they are a lovely picture of our collective appeal to Something bigger than us. I wonder what each of those candles represent to the heart whose hope is pinned on it.  Was the votive lit in hopes of safeguarding a baby yet to be born? An appeal to heal a sick loved one? In memory of someone dear? Little flickers of faith; they whisper from the depths of souls.

At 16, I didn't know that peace can be found in laying your heart on an altar.  Young people hoist burdens almost effortlessly, seek answers ruthlessly, and admit helplessness infrequently.  Lighting a candle would have been an exercise in futility to my way of thinking.  What did it accomplish?  God can hear you if you light a candle or not! Why spend the buck?

Faith, hope, and love are not of the kind of substances that can be physically gathered up like flowers to put in someone else's hands.  We sometimes express them symbolically, the way an artist gives form to  ideas and emotions with paint on a canvas. A woman's gesture of breaking open an expensive jar of perfume, using its contents to wash Jesus' feet with her hair, was that kind of expression. And Jesus thought it was beautiful.


* picture from Amanda's Etsy Shop