Voyager: Candles before Images

At the beginning of Lent, and at the beginning of my blogging about Voyager, I suggested that the novel was somehow Purgatorial, because in many ways, the action was either waiting or stasis, and when movement happened, it was a going forward that stood in direct contrast to the stasis and waiting.  The novel is also full of punishment, deprivation, and prayer.  As I have wound my way slowly through, lingering on more moments than I anticipated, the Purgatorial thread has been obscured while others presented themselves to the reader.

Now that it is the Easter season, I have reached Jamie's brief parting conversation with his son.  In this scene, as Jamie prepares to make a sacrifice, forsaking his own feelings and removing himself from Helwater for the child's sake, we find a simple and elegant explanation of a much-maligned Catholic practice (and Gabaldon has a knack for giving simple, elegant explanations of Catholic practices):

     “What’s that little candle for?” Willie asked. “Grannie says only stinking Papists burn candles in front of heathen images.”
     “Well, I am a stinking Papist,” Jamie said, with a wry twist of his mouth. “It’s no a heathen image, though; it’s a statue of the Blessed Mother.”
     “You are?” Clearly this revelation only added to the boy’s fascination. “Why do Papists burn candles before statues, then?”
     Jamie rubbed a hand through his hair. “Aye, well. It’s  …   maybe a way of praying— and remembering. Ye light the candle, and say a prayer and think of people ye care for. And while it burns, the flame remembers them for ye.”

The scene culminates in a declaration by Willie, an "emergency" baptism, by which Willie is made a "stinking Papist, too" (239), and the gift of a rosary--in short, all of the trappings of Catholicism that can be conjured in a stable.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.