“From the Archives” — Let There Be Light! Two Centuries of Change

When the present Saint Mary church building opened in 1826, candles and whale oil lamps were used to light the interior. Sacristans or parish employees had to precariously climb ladders to refill the oil lamps. This approach lasted until the 1850s. In 1851, a milestone occurred in Old Town when the Alexandria City Corporation began to manufacture natural gas. Churches and streetlamps began to use this new means of illumination. When Father John Blox, S.J (Saint Mary pastor 1855-57), made a major renovation to the church in 1854-1857, adding gas lighting was a major improvement.

Lighting with gas continued for two more decades, until Father Denis O’Kane, S.J. (pastor, 1872-1891), implemented another major renovation and expansion of the church in the 1870s. Thomas Edison’s marvelous invention — electric lighting — swept the country, and Saint Mary added electric lighting at this time. Ornamental electric lights were added throughout the church and two large chandeliers, with 84 lights representing candles, were hung from pendants on each side of the sanctuary.

Candles, of course, were still used for liturgies in the church and candle lit votive lights remained. In today’s modern church, candles or old-fashioned whale oil lamps would be too dim to read our hymnals and missalettes in the pews. In the 1980s, Msgr. Frank Hendrick (pastor, 1981-1991) removed the votive candles, citing a fire safety hazard, but the electric replacements were never popular. Today, in 2023, real candles are back in the votive racks at the base of our Sacred Heart statue (photo on the right).