The Easter Vigil with Benedict XVI, 2012

 At Easter, on the morning of the First Day of the week, God said once again: "Let there be light". The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus' passion and death, the night of the grave, had all passed. Now it is the First Day once again -- Creation is beginning anew. "Let there be Light, says God, "and there was Light". Jesus rises from the grave. ... The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God's pure Light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the Resurrection of Jesus, Light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new Light of the Resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God's new Day, new for all of us. ... 

On Easter Night, the Night of the new Creation, the Church presents the Mystery of Light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal Candle. This is a Light that lives from sacrifice. The Candle shines in as much as it is burnt up. It gives Light, in as much as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the Paschal Mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great Light. Secondly, we should remeber that the Light of th Candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the Mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the Light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourseves. "Whoever is close to me is close to the fire", as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. ...

The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the Deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter Liturgy, points us gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the Candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of Creation plays its part. In the Candle, Creation becomes a bearer of Light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the Candle also in some sense contains an implict reference to the Church. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of Light. ...