Images of Saints on Votive Candles

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I’m trying to find out any information I can about where and when the tradition of putting the image of a saint on the side of a votive candle in a glass container started.

A friend of mine seems to believe that the tradition began with Santeria, which I find very suspect, but I can’t find any information confirming or denying it! At this point I’m emailing anywhere I can think of that has any information about Christian traditions at all…

Any information you have would be greatly appreciated, or if you know of anywhere else I could look to find more information about this, please let me know!

Thanks!
 
I don’t know where it started, but it was not started by the Santeria religion. Santeria does use them though.

My Gypsy relatives, Italian friends of my family, and many others used them when I was growing up, and they were all Catholic. Hispanic people use them too. Santeria came about through a twisting of Catholicism mixed with Voodun and some local traditions and its use of candles came from Catholic tradition. They essentially replaced the loa of voodun with the saints, and elevated the saints as essentially gods. Since honoring saints was done with candles, they kept the tradition. I don’t know if writing prayers on them (like when someone dies) came first from Santeria or from elsewhere, but I am pretty sure that the candles predate Santeria.
 
I have brought some Votive Candles with Images of Saint,s and also of Jesus and Mary, because, on the back side ,their,s a pray ,too say before you light them.
So ,I would say no, theirs,no harm of a picture on it.I also seen plain ones to buy,so you got your pick.
 
What happens to the image of the Saint when the candle has completely burned up?
 
newcalling said:
I don’t know where it started, but it was not started by the Santeria religion. Santeria does use them though.

My Gypsy relatives, Italian friends of my family, and many others used them when I was growing up, and they were all Catholic. Hispanic people use them too. Santeria came about through a twisting of Catholicism mixed with Voodun and some local traditions and its use of candles came from Catholic tradition. They essentially replaced the loa of voodun with the saints, and elevated the saints as essentially gods. Since honoring saints was done with candles, they kept the tradition. I don’t know if writing prayers on them (like when someone dies) came first from Santeria or from elsewhere, but I am pretty sure that the candles predate Santeria.
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thank you so much!
 
prodromos said:
Do you keep them and reuse them (put another candle inside)?
What generally happens to them?
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I am not sure. I don’t recall what family members did with them. I only started using them in recent months. I actually would like to find out. I’ve thought of contacting the company which makes them and asking if they reuse them at all. They might just get thrown away, which would seem wasteful. I don’t know if I could bring myself to throw away something with images of Jesus, Mary or any of the saints. I’ve thought about just putting some water in them and using tealight candles. I suppose I could use some as flower vases, but only so many. Now, the ones I use are the tall ones, often called Novena candles, rather than small votive candles. I’m not sure how to reuse the small ones because using them as shot glasses doesn’t seem right. 😃 I’ll let you know if I find out whether or not they can be reused. I’ve known people to have them blessed, which would make it trickier to just discard them.
 
It is the disposal of holy images which concerns me. I know Churches which do not print icons on newsletters for exactly that reason, because most of them eventually end up in the rubbish.
 
prodromos said:
What happens to the image of the Saint when the candle has completely burned up?
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When I got done with the one that had a Image on it it did nothing to the Votive candies,so I keep it for saying the pray on the back side off it.
 
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