Dear Catholic Info Forum,

I recently found myself attempting to defend the Church against orthodox schismatic claims that the Easter vigil blessing of the candles contains prayers invoking "lucifer" translated to mean the morning star. I had many explanations for this that I thought fit, but in the end I found myself perplexed that all of the missals would have a prayer which mentions "lucifer" and uses the terms that it does. Can anyone offer a better explanation on this?

(L)ucifer would be a name. The Latin term "lucifer" as used in the missal is more defendable, but it's a difficult concept when you find yourself defending the use of "lucifer" in a Catholic prayer. I think the hardest part to swallow is that "lucifer" is supposed to be a moniker for Christ. The morning star it translates to and also stellam from the litany of the BVM. So then both Christ and the Blessed Virgin are the morning star only that different Latin terms are employed so as to reduce confusion. That's one explanation I can think of but referring to Christ as "lucifer" is something that will always be difficult for me to understand. It's seems a bit odd is all. And more so that we find this in the Easter vigil.