I lit a candle for all of you…

After reading about this over at Deacon Greg’s, I lit a candle for all of you folks who come here every day in all sorts of moods, in all sorts of circumstances.

The scoop:

A Catholic church is allowing worshippers to light candles in memory of their loved ones over the internet as it seeks to reach out to a broader community.

The church of Santa Maria Regina Pacis di Ostia, 20 miles from the Vatican offers the novel scheme through its website.

Father Don Ludovico Barbangelo, the church’s priest, said that his idea was “well received by the faithful”, and is “a little gesture that helps lots of people”, particularly “those further away from the church” and “the people who can’t come to mass or those who want to maintain constant contact with us, given that the church isn’t open 24 hours a day.”

The scheme has so far proved popular: nearly 700 candles have been “lit”, including one dedicated to victims of this year’s Abruzzo earthquake and another to a missing person.

However the church believes it can expand his virtual worship still further. “We’ve also downloaded some videos of masses. As for worship by video streaming, we’re thinking about it… we’ll see,” Fr Barbangelo told the Ansa news agency.

Light a candle, say a prayer. The ancients did it, so do we. Now we don’t even have to leave our desks, if we really can’t. Note the pope:

Pope Benedict XVI encouraged “young Catholic believers” to “bring the witness of their faith to the digital world” and in May, the Vatican established ‘pope2you.net’, allowing worshippers to sign up for Facebook, iPod Touch and iPhone applications to receive messages from the Pontiff.

However, the Pope has also sounded a note of caution over the pervasiveness of the internet in the modern world, warning that “if the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction”.

True that. Something to keep in mind.

You can see prayers and requests from around the world. Love it.

Which reminds me, if you are ever chained to your desk and feeling in need of prayer or consolation and companionship, you can always go over to Savior.org where the wonderful Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters keep the live-feed going around the clock (and take your prayer requests.)

You can also donate flowers for their altar, which has turned into a very good gift to give my FIL, a man who wants nothing and likes knowing that sometimes the flowers are donated in his name, for his intentions.