We'll keep a light on for you.

ALL MY LIFE A CATHOLIC, I UNDERSTOOD vigil lights for the first time on my mother's birthday, May 18, eight months after she died. Not quite knowing what to do with myself, I went to morning Mass and was comforted. The beautiful Eastertide readings had an eerie appropriateness: Paul said farewell to the church of Ephesus in these terms: "I know that you . . . will see my face no more." The gospel began with Jesus' words: "And now I am no more in the world."

But after the service, I felt there was more I needed to do, more I wanted to express. I noticed a bank of vigil lights, the kind I had passed many times before in many churches.

I had always felt vaguely embarrassed by vigil lights--they had seemed anachronistic, a throwback to a church we'd thrown out, or so I thought. Their waxy, smoky aroma had had the air of stuffy tradition and outmoded custom.

But this day the candles drew me in with a power I'd never before acknowledged. As they flickered and danced, they whispered to me, "We remember."

"We remember your mother," they said. "We remember all those who have died. We remember because we have caught fire from the hands of those who remember."

Before I knew what I was doing, I was lighting one of the candles. I stepped back and looked at the row of candles. Mom's candle stood among seven or eight others. How it shone! How it stood out from the others! Hers was the most recently lit and thus would burn the longest. I smiled to myself when I realized that this thought pleased me.

I took another step back and noticed how all the candles shining together gave off a gentle glow that filled the corner of the church with a warmth no electric bulb could provide. Now Mom's candle blended with the others, as if she were a member of some heavenly choir. Where did one light end and another begin? Where does one voice end and another begin? Where does one life end and another begin?

Standing there, staring at the choir of light, I realized that the woman who had given life to me and my brother and sisters was very much alive and well. She was dancing on the tip of that flame just as surely as she used to kick up her heels with her sisters during their annual Irish jig at the Christmas party.

Vigil lights help us keep our loved ones dancing. They help us keep the great cosmic dance going. Perhaps that's why they were originally placed at the burial sites of loved ones. The symbolism is perfect. What could be more like a human life than a candle? Wax, wick, and flame: body, soul, and Spirit.

A statue of Joan of Arc stood next to the vigil lights. Her face took on a human warmth in the glow of the candles. Mom would like this, I thought. She certainly had Saint Joan's spunk.

Satisfied, I prepared to leave the church. Having placed the modest $2 offering in the small envelope provided, I searched without success for a place to leave it. I noticed a small group of older women who had been visiting near the door after Mass. I approached and asked if they knew what I should do with the envelope. One of the women offered to drop it off at the office. I handed her the envelope, thanked her, and started to leave.

Another woman in the group turned to me (did I notice a bit of my mother's twinkling blue Irish eyes in her?) and whispered with a smile, "I wouldn't trust her with your money."

Laughter echoed through the church. I took a last look at Mom's vigil light. Still dancing. I walked out into the bright spring sunshine. A beautiful day to be born, Mom.

As long as there is someone to light a candle, how can the darkness overcome us?