Is anything wrong in using candles to pray?

Q: As a young girl, I grew up to see my mum use candles to pray. Later i discovered that it’s a culture she adopted from our white garment church. I became a Christian at the University and i cannot pray properly until I light a candle. I am in Part One at the university. These days, my room mates criticise me for being fetish and an improper Christian. Really, none of them lights candles to pray but I was told from home that candles energise angels of the Lord to take your prayers to heaven unhindered. Is this true? Is anything wrong in using candles to pray? Why would the White garment churches use it if it has not assisted them? Please educate me on this. [First published on 1 February 2009]

I am not certain of the root of the use of candles to pray in white garment churches. It might have derived from the Old Testament (The candlestick or lamp-stand was one of the furniture in the Holy Place of the Tabernacle). According to A Handbook of Catholic Sacramentals, by Ann Ball, the practice of lighting candles in order to obtain some favour probably has its origins in the custom of burning lights at the tombs of the martyrs in the catacombs. The lights burned as a sign of solidarity with Christians still on earth but this may have had its origin in some pagan rituals where lights torches are lighted in the tomb of dead people to help them see their way in the land of the dead.

In the New Testament, we don’t need any physical candlestick.  Jesus, the “true light that gives light to every man” (John 1:9) came into the world so that man could see God and not live in spiritual darkness anymore (John 8: 12, John 9:46). We don’t need candles again to fellowship with God in the place of prayer, we now have access to the Father through the true light that gives light to every man; Jesus Christ