Religion for Consumption

    Pictured here is isle 5 at Western Beef, a chain supermarket, located at West End Avenue. I took a moment to contemplate the rows and rows of candles. There are both prayer and regular candles present, and where one type ends and the other one begins is easily distinguishable. I had obviously seen prayer candles before in people’s homes and in churches and even on television. For whatever reason however, maybe because I hadn’t taken our American Religious Texts class, I never realized what this embodiment of religion could signify. Most specifically, I was thinking about the Christian underpinning of consumption as advocated by Beecher. Or would saying the consumption underpinning of Christianity be more appropriate? 

          The price for both the prayer and regular candles is advertised in bright yellow tags as being 3 for 5 dollars, which led me on a tangent of questions. Did demand have to do with the pricing decision of this particular good? Probably. In which case, is there a lot of demand or barely any? What kind of research was there conducted to decide which saint’s candle would sell more? Do they only sell the candle of the saints who have a bigger following? Do they map the demographic of those who attend the supermarket and then choose the patron saints of the costumers’ country of origin? Do only religious people purchase the prayer candles? Because if we think about the ‘more bang for your buck’ phrase, the prayer candles, due to their sheer size, are a far better ‘investment.’ Think about the burn time! In which case, do candles turn votive when they are adorned with a saint or when they are used for a religious ritual?

         Each candle has the image of a saint and, for the most part, the color is the one associated with said saint. The saint’s name is present in English and Spanish and the saint’s prayer is also present in both English and Spanish. This let me know that demographic was obviously taken into consideration. I stood in that isle for a couple of minutes and did a few loops around the store as I gathered my groceries but never saw anyone in the midst of deciding which candle best suited their needs. Whenever I went grocery shopping from then on I tried to swing by the isle and do a quick inventory. The first couple of times I saw no substantial depletion but in one particular trip I finally happened to ascertain that people were in fact purchasing the candles. I mean, the supermarket wouldn’t have them out there if they weren’t. If you look closely, on the second picture the candles have been brought forward to make up for the lack of inventory. I noticed that Saint Judas Thaddaeus, the patron of difficult situations, and Saint Barbara, among other things, the patron saint of those who work with explosives (I did look this up) were not on the shelf sections anymore. Furthermore, after about 5 months, they are no longer being sold 3 for 5 dollars.

      Seeing these candles in the supermarket made me question if there were out of place, especially right next to insecticides products. I think it was because I don’t associate supermarkets with a place that satisfies religious needs. Imagine this: “I need ground beef, flour, a gallon of milk, and a couple candles to pray for divine intervention.” More so taking into account the implications of this being a chain store and not a mom and pop store or bodega, where one might be used to finding an array of disparate items next to each other. I am not sure if all Western Beef stores carrying these candles would surprise me more that knowing they’re only sold at this specific location. Even then, are mom and pop stores or bodegas a more appropriate place to sell these candles anyway? 

     My answer was: why not? Religion permeates every aspect of life, after all. Why would it be compartmentalized in this scenario?  We come full circle and arrive at the marriage between Christianity and consumerism. Why would these two be mutually exclusive? Why can’t we sell these prayer candles anywhere, really? We live in a consumerist society that seeks to fulfill the material needs of every aspect of a person’s life, even catering to the rituals of religion by providing votive candles to light.