Published: December 08, 2007 11:44 pm      

To remember children, bereaved families join in Worldwide Candle Lighting

Joining hundreds of organized memorial services around the world, members of the Meridian Area chapter of The Compassionate Friends (TCF), a national self-help support organization for families grieving the death of a child, will light candles today in an act of symbolic remembrance. This is the eleventh annual Worldwide Candle Lighting, an event believed to be the largest mass candle lighting in the world.

The local candle lighting will be part of a special service held at 6:30 p.m. at the Meridian District Office of the United Methodist Church, located at 6210 Hwy. 39 North, and will feature special music and readings prior to the lighting of the candles.

Participants are asked to bring their favorite “finger food” and join the fellowship and sharing immediately after the program. Annually tens of thousands of families, united in loss, light candles for one hour during The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting, held the second Sunday in December. Candles are first lit at 7 p.m., local time, just west of the International Date Line. As candles burn down in one time zone, they are lighted in the next, creating a 24-hour wave of light as the observance continues around the world.

“This is our gift to the bereavement community,” says United States TCF Executive Director Patricia Loder.

“The holiday season is an extremely difficult time of the year for families grieving the death of a child. This marks over a decade the Worldwide Candle Lighting has united bereaved families around the globe as a symbolic way of showing the love we continue to carry for our children, even though they can no longer be with us physically. This candle lighting surpasses all political boundaries as tens of thousands of persons will participate in countries around the world.”

With the theme “that their light may always shine,” the Worldwide Candle Lighting has grown larger every year with formal services last year in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, as well as approximately a dozen countries around the world. The number of formal services has grown by more than 50 percent in the past three years. The national TCF Web site, www.compassionatefriends.org, will feature a remembrance book today for families to post tributes.

For more information about the national organization and locations of its chapters nationwide, call toll-free 877-969-0010 or visit TCF’s national Web site. The Compassionate Friends has a presence in 30 countries and is the world’s largest self-help bereavement organization.