BLESSED CANDLES: LIGHTS, HEARTS, & STORMS -- 2 of 3

Candlemas, 10am Sunday Feb 4, 2024

“Light the Thunder Candle,” Mama's voice had a sense of urgency. She received a midnight call to the hospital. My father was in serious condition. There was a storm in the family. Daddy almost died that night. The only doctor he trusted was an old-world Austrian physician whose antiquated methods ousted him to a small, rural hospital.  This European physician was later asked to report my father’s surprise recovery in a prestigious medical journal.

The Thunder Candle. A few weeks earlier, my father strangely canceled his flight to Poland for his mom’s funeral. She died on February 2, Thunder Candle Day 1969.

Needless to say, for decades, encounters with the flame of the Polish Thunder Candle (gromnica -grom-KNEE-tsah) have enlightened my imagination. It began at ten years of age. The Franciscan Sisters told me to be in church over a half-hour earlier to sell candles. 

That morning came too quickly. In the servers’ sacristy I donned freshly whitened cloth sneakers, vesting in the red, solemnity cassock, and a crispy fringed laced surplice.  I was instructed to carry various boxes of candles to the rear vestibule.

The ladies were already arriving, so I had to hurry. They scurried through yet unopened boxes, searching for the right size, shape, color to their liking. Before I finished displaying the magic-marker price-cards, the first early riser had already paid. Then, nine sisters, each enfolded in long black capes walked in out of the cold. They each carried a candle, garbed more festively than their flowing veils and ample black sleeves, with blue and white ribbons, a sprig of something green.

Another double line of senior matrons lined the last pews of the center aisle. Waiting for the pastor, the busied themselves lighting tall, thick, dark gold, Thunder Candles, with crinkling, funneled foil cups to catch excess wax. They were the “Women of the Stars,” or Ad Astra gals, members of a national woman’s movement and family insurance union.

Their silver foil crunched as the pastor in a most splendid, gold brocade cope and biretta cap arrived.  His powerful baritone voice chanted prayers as his arm masterfully wielded the holy water shower with cloudy incense wafts over our heads. These bold, “star women” with a Polish song on their lips lead the pastor to the altar. He sang a lower harmony line. I just followed humming with two other senior servers.

“Keep the Thunder Candles lit until after the Gospel!” the pastor ordered. We chanted the Latin coda to the Jerusalem Temple event Gospel: “Praised to You….” Whispering breaths drifted through the church extinguishing the flickering flames. Swirls of smoke made their way, traveling among the pews. All this before 7am?!

Similar scenes at church occurred annually and each more deeply engraved in memory. Through adolescent years I summoned the light of the Thunder Candle as severe, anxiety inducing, personal storms rumbled over a troubled, hippie generation horizon.

Not until a grad-school mentor, Fr Pops, preached on how he lit dozens of candles when storms hit, did the practice gently pierce and open my heart.  He named each waxen group: colored glass vigils, thin tapers, the mod 1970s scented-fat-wax- circumferences, mysterious floating candles, and one or two old fashioned 100%, dark gold, beeswax, flaming towers.  When all these were lit, said the recovering alcoholic priest, I was in my deepest storms.

During a year of study in Communist Poland, I returned to Royal Kraków from a Christmas break at the family homestead. With staunch determination I vociferously sought out a traditional beeswax Thunder Candle for the morning seminary blessing. Not a one in all of Kraków. “You’d have to search the neighboring villages for an old-fashioned beekeeper,” the shopkeepers repeated, “to find something like that.” My classmates affirmed these disappointing findings.

I ended up purchasing a pretty, light-yellow, dyed paraffin candle. It featured the customary markings: two gold bands and a small image of the Blessed Mother.  I fixed some greens with a ribbon to it. My classmates deemed the most traditional Thunder Candle Kraków had seen in a century of Masses.

That same evening, the rector granted me permission to go to the Franciscan Church. Street posters advertised the annual, final, Christmas carol concert of the 40-day season. My Thunder Candle was blessed a second time. An 80-plus, voice choir gave the most stirring harmonic rendition of Polish carols I had ever heard. Even though the candle was paraffin, Boy! was I blessed.

After returning to the States, I made sure that wherever I would be on February 2, to attend, or later as an adult organize, a farewell carol sing-along with a Thunder Candle blessing. The best was yet to come.

My father wanted grandchildren, not a celibate priest-son. Being the only one, I messed up his plans. In resignation he would always say, “If you insist to be one of those priests, you must go to Rome! I was there.”  Not only during World War II, serving in the Polish military, did Daddy's military tour visit the Eternal City. He was selected to don his uniform and carry Pope Pius XII around St Peter’s, on the sedia gestatoria, or portable throne. This, of course, was before the “pope-mobile” was invented.

Later, Daddy wanted to buy me a plane ticket to attend the installation of the first Polish pope. I said, “No.”  He retorted, “You’re always opposite.” To that I replied, “Daddy, when I go to Rome, I’ll stay longer than one week.”  He hung up.

As a priest, I was assigned to Rome for doctoral studies.  Not just once, but each year of the four-year sojourn I attended St John Paul’s Feb 2, Candlemas procession at St Peter’s Vatican Basilica. I learned it was one of the major, evening prayer events of the entire year add one of this pope's favorite.

As in Poland, I searched for 100% Beeswax candles.  At an antique wax and honey shop, I found thin tapers and candlesticks. These Thunder Candles blessed by a saint, a few rose petal Rosaries, and the Rosary I received directly from the sainted pope, today are on display at St Casimir’s International Family Faith exhibit. (See photo on earlier post: "Glory Brought Home...")

The collection features a copy of Stankiewicz’s “Thunder Candle Lady” (above), a wood turned statuette version, an intricate hand carved beeswax original, and two of my own carved and polychromed works. A few antique wax-raised, Crucifix adorned tapers, along with First Communion candles, my first 100% beeswax candle made by a beekeeper-friend in Michigan, and other Thunder Candles created during the last eight years form memories of my best days.

The most splendid Thunder Candle is an 18”, pure beeswax candle, made by a more recent beekeeper friend who imported a mold from Poland (above photo). To it I fixed his wax-molded raised bees, golden “Light of the World” belts, a miniature icon of the Black Madonna, a golden laurel-leaf band, and silver-gilded anniversary leaves interspersed with natural fragrant myrtle and asparagus fern. Blue and white ribbons connected the light with its traditional counterparts.

Why all these details? Each element points to a reality bigger and greater than ourselves. They reveal the supernatural quality of the blessing ancients brought home this night.

Natural wax is the gift of bees to God providing soft, sweetly inspiring, praise-light, guiding eyes heavenward.  Polish tradition considers bees “nature’s angels,” alight with the gift of fire (sting) and nectar from heaven. Wax in turn symbolizes Jesus’ body, the flesh of the eternal Word, given to Him by Mary, His Mother. Its burning flame represents Christ, the Light of the World, who no darkness can overcome. Mary spends her life, as the flame consumes the candle, in praise of her Son.

Golden belts and laurel leaf bands guide the eyes of the soul to encounter the Lord’s glorious Presentation in the Jerusalem Temple. Hypapante in Greek denotes the event as a festival of God meets God, Jesus coming to his Father in Solomon’s sanctuary. During this 40^th day birth rite, the prophet Simeon proclaimed the Child the Light of revelation to the Nations and the glory of His people (Lk 2:32).

White ribbon points to our share in eternal bliss through Baptism into Christ’s Death and Resurrection. As the old man Simeon proclaimed, my eyes have seen promised salvation.  Blue highlights the “Thunder Candle Lady” who shall be pierced with the sword of her own Son’s execution, so the thoughts of many hearts be laid open (Lk 2:35).  The use of greenery and flowers is a peculiarly Polish touch, revealing nature's ongoing participation in divine-earthly festivals.

Perhaps these memories may open the thoughts of your heart to experience the mystery of lighting a Thunder Candle through the joys and tribulations of our lives.

_______________________

Some additional on-line memories shared after the 2019 candlelit Procession and Mass at St Casimir Church in Buffalo, NY:

I still have a portion of my mother’s Candle and remember that she would light it during a storm.  Brooklyn, NY.

One of the things I appreciate about Polish roots is being close to nature.

New Britain, CT.

You keep it [the Thunder Candle] as long as possible, just add new herbs or greens  yearly.  When Mum was dying, I was allowed to bring in our family Gromnica and light it while sitting in vigil, till she breathed her last. When she died, I blew out the Gromnica and opened the window, then notified family and the hospital staff.   I also put it in her coffin with lily of the valley, which were her favorites.

Adelaide, South Australia.

Lighting a blessed candle is a prayer.  Buffalo, NY.

I can’t thank you enough for this information…. As a snot-nosed, know-it-all kid, I really never sat down with Mom to really pump her for information. It didn’t occur to me until she was gone, and I realized what I missed. I am so thankful for helping me to find my inner Polishness.  Long Beach, CA.

We light them (blessed candles) and pray for peace. We try not to argue or say anything bad about anyone on this day (Feb 2)…. That’s what our Mama taught us to do. It’s a day of peace. Unknown.

I worked on a psych ward. A vagrant, who knew no English, was brought to me. He only spoke Polish. I couldn’t make out much of what he was saying.  One day he went into a frenzy and was locked up. He kept shouting something in Polish, Finally I understood.  He was yelling, “Light a candle!”

 I tried to tell him that was not allowed. He screamed all the more. Telling my supervisor, he finally found someone who lit a small birthday candle. They placed it near the window of his confinement cell. As soon as he saw the flame, he stopped, his tensed muscles went limp and face smiled. 

After examining him, the doctors said he was ready for treatment. A few weeks later, he left the institution to locate his family.  Now I am sure his deep unconscious was begging for the flame of a Thunder Candle.

Psychiatric nurse, Pittsburgh, PA

Rev Dr Czeslaw M Krysa, Rector

Church of St Casimir, Buffalo, NY