I’ve been thinking about candles.
It’s rather hard not to, in this festive time of the year. As I write this, it’s three days before the Third Sunday of Advent on the Christian religious calendar. There’s an electric candle in my every front window. It’s also the eighth and final day of Hanukkah on the calendar of my Jewish brothers and sisters. All eight of their menorah candles are now lighted. (Actually, that’s not technically a menorah, as I just learned; more about that shortly.)
Last Sunday at Mass, I saw the Advent Wreath up by the altar. Two purple candles were burning. They’ll light the third one, a pink candle, this coming Sunday. It’s called “Gaudete” Sunday – meaning “rejoice.” We’re supposed to be joyful because the Redeemer is almost here. That’s why candle three is pink.
I’ll be there on Sunday morning, at 7:30 a.m. in St. Anne’s Church, Readville. I’ll see that pink candle’s flame. I’ll see as well the other two candles lighted for the mass, which is to be celebrated in memory of my Mary Ellen. She went home to God four years ago, on December 17, 2019, and this will be her anniversary mass.
I know I’m supposed to be joyful, on this Gaudete Sunday. And I will, sort of. I know where she is, and I’m grateful that the Lord called her home and freed her from the prison that her body had become with Alzheimer’s Disease. My memories of our 42 years of marriage are happy ones. She is still with us as well, in the lives of our children, of her many siblings, and in the many hundreds of lives of the children she taught through her brilliant career in the classroom. Yes, all causes for rejoicing, even as the inevitable waves of sadness wash over me. Maybe this is what they mean by “mixed blessings.”
The readings I’ll hear at the mass show just that mixing; perhaps more poignantly, to me, they also point toward Mary Ellen and what she did for others during her time here on earth. Like the candles, she brought her own special light to the world. More of that anon, too.
The first reading from Isaiah says “…he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted.” Thanks for that, Isaiah. You’ve come to the right place.
The responsorial psalm is not, as is customary, from David. This time it’s from Mary, the only psalm we have from her: “My soul rejoices in my God.” And “…the Almighty has done great things for me.” Yes, I can’t disagree with that. Every morning I awake with a prayer of thanks for the Lord’s giving me a new day; and on this Sunday especially, I’ll say that prayer of thanks that he sent Mary Ellen to me. Great things, indeed.
The second reading, from Paul to the Thessalonians, begins “Brothers and sisters. Rejoice always.” Well, okay, but see the paragraph directly above for my best reason why.
The gospel is from Luke, and it’s the passage about John the Baptist as the voice crying in the wilderness to make straight the way of the Lord. It also says “He was not the light, but came to testify to the light.”
Ah, there it is again. The light. From candles, yes, but from us and our loved ones as well.
Coincidentally, I recently visited the guest book for Mary Ellen’s obituary on Legacy.com. Perusing all the wonderful things that people – many of them her former students and parents of students – took the time to write about her made me very happy. One, however, from a contemporary and former teaching colleague, was spot-on for this meditation on lights and candles. She wrote:
“Although I have not seen Mary Ellen in many years, it is apparent that the same Jesus who beckoned her to join the Sisters of St. Joseph for a short time, has been alive within her as she lived out her vocation to her husband, her children, her family, her first graders, and her professional colleagues.
“Having carried the Light of Jesus to all those in her life, and having shared in His Cross during her time of physical suffering, is she not now enjoying eternal life with Him Who beckoned her home last week? Surely, this is the greatest lesson of the thousands of lessons Mary Ellen taught during her lifetime.”
Tears of gratitude for that one. Yes, Mary Ellen did carry the light of Jesus to all those in her life. We weren’t Jewish, but she was the personification of a shamash.
What’s a shamash? This brings me, at long last, to what I said in the first paragraph about menorahs. As I just learned, in researching for this post, the Menorah is actually a seven-branched candelabrum, used in the Temple and Tabernacle. That’s technically not what we see at Hanukkah. We see instead the Hanukkiah, a nine-branched candelabrum used for the Hanukkah Festival of lights.
The Hanukkiah has one candle for each of the eight days of the festival. It also holds the shamash candle, which is used to light all the others and to show the way.
As the website Chabad.org puts it:
“The shamash serves as a lesson to educators and leaders everywhere. The shamash is not a mitzvah candle. Yet, it is important because it is the instrument that enables all the other candles to form a mitzvah.
“Each of us has the potential to be a shamash. We all have a responsibility to become teachers and impact the lives of others. Just as the shamash is usually placed above the other candles, a person who serves others, a teacher, becomes great because he or she is using a set of superior skills to make others great too.”
Yes, Mary Ellen was a shamash.
And so, on Gaudete Sunday, at her fourth anniversary mass, I’ll have ample reason to rejoice and to be thankful that she and I shared much of our earthly lives together.
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