This year’s candle is a bit different than past designs, more ornamental in style and more elusive in symbolism, but that is intentional.

The goal of this design is to capture the eye of the viewer through the use of sumptuous beauty, color and detail to begin the questions; starting with, “Wait...what is that candle? I've never noticed it before”; then “Why are there peacocks?” etc.  

Each year, I pray about the next year’s design and in this year of 2021 the words “decorative”, “beautiful”, even “pretty” kept coming to mind.  The peacock, artichoke and pomegranate also came to mind.  They each are ancient symbols with various meanings that are not readily apparent. I tried to create a candle that is beautiful and worthy of contemplation but also one worthy of asking questions.

The peacock as a symbol of Faith:

The peacock, stunningly beautiful in color, design and flair is more than just a pretty face.  The ancients believed its flesh to be incorruptible because it does not rot like other flesh, but only dries out.  St. Augustine attested to experimenting as such in The City of God.  Early Christians baptized the peacock as a symbol of eternal life and used its image on sarcophagi and murals in the catacombs. The tail feathers of the peacock molt at the end of summer and begin to grow back around Christmas, returning in full glory and more brilliant than before around Easter. The feather cycle and the connection to eternal life makes the peacock a fitting symbol of the Resurrection. 

On this candle the peacocks drink from living water flowing from a font, like the waters of baptism. They proclaim the theological virtue of Faith based in the Resurrection for as Paul says in 1 Cor 15:14—"If Christ has not been raised, then our own preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”

 The artichoke as a symbol of Hope:

The artichoke is considered a symbol of hope because the tough, thorny leaves protect the soft, tender heart. But a more apt Christian interpretation goes back to Genesis.

“cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it brings forth to you..”  Gen3:17-18

The artichoke is a thistle.  While this scripture truly is a terrible curse, these words, strangely, should give great hope!  God could have abandoned Adam and Eve for their sin of disobedience.  He did not.  He removed them from the Garden but protected them as an act of His Mercy and this set the stage for our Savior.  (Oh Happy Fault!)  Now in toil we grow our food. It is work to prepare it to be eaten.  The artichoke takes perseverance and Hope.  Trim the thorns.  Boil the globe.  Peel away each leaf.  Scrape away the nascent flower. Finally, the small tender heart is revealed and the hope for a tasty morsel is revealed.  It’s a lot of work for little food and yet, in light of the Resurrection, it seems fitting to contemplate the hope of the transformation of a cursed thorny thistle into a delicacy, not unlike our own thorny selves becoming holy through the grace of Christ’s redeeming work on the Cross.

On this candle the artichoke is represented in various growth stages with the thistle flowers shooting up to meet the peacock tails as a call and response from Faith to Hope and Hope to Faith, each reaching to the other.

The pomegranate as a symbol of Charity:

Like the peacock, the pomegranate as a symbol has deep roots in pre-Christian and Christian traditions.  The multitude of seeds readily translate to fertility in older traditions.  But the deep red juice allows the Catholic imagination to see the flow of blood from Christ’s side pouring forth to bring new life and fecundity in the Church.

In the New Liturgical Movement Peter Kwasnieski describes the pomegranate as a symbol of Charity because “it gives of what it contains that is most delicious and precious: it gives itself just like Christ did in his infinite charity through the Eucharist, born in his heart—that heart which he allowed to be opened for us through the striking of the spear of the soldier during his Passion, that the divine red liquid might flow forth.”

On this candle the pomegranate is centered on a symmetrical, ornate gold cross.  It is also a feature in the bands representing the Alpha and the Omega, the peacock and the artichoke because in the end…Charity remains.

Each candle is a work of art - height and diameter vary the design choice I make to create a beautiful, balanced candle.