Listening to the liturgical prayers throughout the entire church year, and especially those on the major holidays – such as those during the liturgy of Holy Saturday – represents a true school of faith. Both dogmatic teachings and moral ones have deeply permeated the Liturgy of the ages. It is rightly said, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi. Unfortunately, this harmony has been completely destroyed by the liturgical “reform” of Pope Paul VI, which eliminated, as has already been shown in numerous books and articles, entire parts of the sacred ceremonies. From this point of view, alongside all that has been shown in the well-known report of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, the symbolic universe unfolded in all its breadth in the Traditional Roman Catholic Liturgy is no longer found in the Novus Ordo liturgy. For example, the symbols and their meanings are no longer found in acts such as the Blessing of Candles on Candlemas.[i] In practice, traditional theology of sacred symbols has been excluded, completely ignoring its crucial pedagogical value.
The Christian notion of “symbol” indicates that bridge between our visible world, accessible to the senses through sensory knowledge, and the spiritual world, invisible, accessible to the intellect through contemplative knowledge.
If I speak of pedagogy (i.e., “the art of education”), this is because often the fundamental truths of faith are conveyed to us through the symbolic language of sacred images. I perceived this very clearly in the liturgy of the Resurrection night. Following the blessings of the Paschal Candle in my old missal, I was surprised to hear mentioned the diligent creatures that produce wax: bees and their queen. Remembering my childhood, when I helped my grandfather take care of the hives he had, this detail delighted me so much that I immediately decided to delve into the meanings of bee symbolism. I felt even more encouraged when I discovered that Pope Pius XII dedicated an entire meditation to them, the essence of which I quote now:
“Impelled and guided by instinct, a visible trace and testimony of the unseen wisdom of the Creator, what lessons do not bees give to men, who are, or should be, guided by reason, the living reflection of the divine intellect!”
Here, then, is a firm encouragement from a worthy sovereign pontiff. Let us therefore use our minds to unravel the teachings of divine Wisdom encrypted in creation and His creatures – in this case, the wonderful and amazing bees.
Creatures with a distinctly positive character, presented to us in the context of the great feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, are the bees.
The symbol, a bridge between the “seen world” and the “unseen world”
The Christian notion of “symbol” indicates that bridge between our visible world, accessible to the senses through sensory knowledge, and the spiritual world, invisible, accessible to the intellect through contemplative knowledge. The “symbolizer” is the visible part of the sacred object, such as the Holy altar, while the “symbolized” represents the unseen part of the symbol, which in the case of the altar is Christ the Savior Himself – “the cornerstone.”
I emphasize briefly here that the symbol is not a conventional sign created by humans, such as traffic signs. On the contrary, symbols are instituted by God Himself, offering us the opportunity to decipher the teachings and message He wishes to convey to us.
In the sacred context of the church, for all those who have a good education of the mind acquired through mystagogical catechesis, the symbol presents the invisible reality of unseen, heavenly beings, to which we can only have mediated access during this life. Symbols are everywhere. Not only those in a religious, sacred context, which are well-defined, but even those contemplated perpetually by the great mystagogues such as Saints Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and Jerome: the symbols from the surrounding nature. Although we encounter this type of reflection in all the great commentators of sacred texts, the ultimate synthesis is found in the writings of Saint Francis de Sales.
The Savoyard doctor does not miss any opportunity to use in his theological writings, such as the Treatise on the Love of God, symbols from nature. Like all the other saints, he extends the sacred hermeneutics tradition of the Holy Scriptures, which is full of such symbols drawn from the world of plants and animals: the fig tree, the vine, wheat and chaff, the donkey and the horse, the eagle and the dove, and many others. Reading carefully his writings, we can learn how to meditate on the various creatures. Thus, through a good knowledge of them, which he usually drew from famous encyclopedic treatises such as Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, he established those specific and distinct traits from which he extracted their spiritual meanings.
All these elements – the bees, their queen, the wax, the light – are part of a scenario that, ideally, presents us with a complete picture where we discern all the details of the Christian life of holiness lived within the Church context.
At first glance, this doesn’t seem very difficult. It’s not hard to perceive that the donkey is stubborn, the snake suggests cunning, and the lion courage and physical strength. In some cases, however, there is an ambiguity of symbols intended to make us think. For example, the owl. Sometimes considered a demonic being because of its nocturnal life, other times it is considered a symbol of wisdom due to its ability to see through darkness. We see, therefore, that the symbol based on such a winged creature must be thought of in context. Other animals, however, have an unequivocal character: the dove is always the positive symbol of purity, chastity, associated with God Himself – the Holy Spirit.
The industrious little bees and their mystical meanings
Creatures with a distinctly positive character, presented to us in the context of the great feast of the Resurrection of our Lord, are the bees. What immediately caught my attention is their relationship with that symbolic object – the Paschal candle – which carries the light of the Resurrection: an extremely important symbol in the context of the liturgical ceremonies of Holy Saturday. All these elements – the bees, their queen, the wax, the light – are part of a scenario that, ideally, presents us with a complete picture where we discern all the details of the Christian life of holiness lived within the Church context.
First, let’s look at the two texts where the bees are mentioned:
“On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle, a solemn offering, the work of bees and of your servants’ hands, an evening sacrifice of praise, this gift from your most holy Church.”
“But now we know the praises of this pillar, which glowing fire ignites for God’s honor, a fire into many flames divided, yet never dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious.”
“Mother bees” produce the wax of the Paschal candle. This is only the symbol of the true Queen, that of Heaven and Earth, the Virgin Mary, who from her virginal, immaculate body, gave birth to the divine Son.
The first text has always been associated with the communal symbolism of bees. In fact, the image interpreted by numerous authors, pagan or Christian, is that of the harmonious hive and its inhabitants, which have two exemplary traits: industry and efficacy (i.e., productivity with its consequence, wealth). However, these two traits hide a key characteristic that was perfectly captured by Pope Pius XII in his address to Italian beekeepers, which I have already quoted: the humble assumption of the duties of their own state of life. Without envy, without casting an eye on the qualities and performances of neighbors, thus without anything that produces vanity and envy, bees are an extraordinary example of work combined in the service of the hive – the Church of our Savior Christ. This is the interpretation of Pope Pius XII:
“Bees are models of social life and activity, in which each class has its duty to perform and performs it exactly – one is almost tempted to say conscientiously – without envy, without rivalry, in the order and position assigned to each, with care and love. Even the most inexperienced observer of bee culture admires the delicacy and perfection of this work. Unlike the butterfly which flits from flower to flower out of pure caprice; unlike the wasp and the hornet, brutal aggressors, who seem intent on doing only harm with no benefit for anyone, the bee pierces to the very depths of the flower’s calix diligently, adroitly, and so delicately, that once its precious treasure has been gathered, it gently leaves the flowers without having injured in the least the light texture of their garments or caused a single one of their petals the loss of its immaculate freshness. Then, loaded down with sweet-scented nectar, pollen, and propolis, without capricious gyrations, without lazy delays, swift as an arrow, with precise, unerring, certain flight, it returns to the hive, where valorous work goes on intensely to process the riches so carefully garnered, to produce the wax and the honey. Fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragantia mella” (Virgil, Georgics, 4, 169).[ii]
However, Christian tradition has recorded another symbolic interpretation, which addressed the essential Christian mystery: the Incarnation of our Savior Christ. Although I have not yet managed to discover the direct source of this interpretation, it is known to me both from the Catholic Encyclopedia and from other studies on the early Christian centuries. Since the encyclopedia presents this interpretation very well and comprehensively, I quote it directly from its online version, the article “Paschal Candle:”
“In the virgin wax, a later symbolism recognized the most pure flesh which Christ derived from His blessed Mother, in the wick the human soul of Christ, and in the flame the divinity of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.”[iii]
Thus, not only the divine-human person of our Savior Christ, but also the Blessed Virgin Mary is involved in the symbolism of the three inseparably linked elements: wax, the wick of the candle, and the luminous flame. This interpretation is implied in the prayer of the Easter Vigil when it is said that the holy light “it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious.”
As I have shown repeatedly, biblical symbols and parables always contain elements meant to surprise us and to show us that the Church intends to teach us not about agriculture or shepherding or beekeeping, but about the supernatural realities of faith.
So it is here that we are surprised by the assertion that “mother bees” produce the wax of the Paschal candle. This is only the symbol of the true Queen, that of Heaven and Earth, the Virgin Mary, who from her virginal, immaculate body, gave birth to the divine Son. Thus, some of the most beloved creatures, which do so much good to humans through all their products (honey, wax, propolis, pollen, etc.), have been introduced into the prayers of the Church, becoming symbols through which we are taught both the mysteries of faith and how we must live as true Christians, working diligently and devotedly for the mystical body of our Savior Christ, under the guidance of His mother. Actually we are the “bees” invited to bear fruit: “the one thirty, another sixty, and another a hundred” (Mark 4:20).
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[i] To “measure” the extent of the disaster, I recommend the excellent article by Dr. Peter Kwasniewski titled “A Comparison of the Old and New Blessing of Candles on Candlemas:” https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/02/a-comparison-of-old-and-new-blessing-of.html [Accessed: 03 April 2024].
[ii] I warmly recommend the entire text of Pope Pius XII: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3813 [Accessed: 03 April 2024].
[iii] The article can be read here: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11515b.htm [Accessed: 03 April 2024].
