Votive Candles

Sassy's youth was spent with the old Irish women always on the 

ready to light a candle to the favorite saint, the Virgin Mary, or the 

Sacred Heart. One can still hear the quarters clanking against the 

metal box and feel the nudge of the auntie or the mother telling  

the child to kneel and pray for the favor needed.

Candles soon  cost a dollar and lacked the flame of faith in the 

name of not burning the church to the ground. The child now a 

woman no longer attends church. But this year she bought votive 

candles for fifty cents and prays to the old Irish women  (the true 

saints) held in memory. She asks for their blessing and that 

they might lead us into 2016 with their faith,