In a town at Indonesia's easternmost edge, kindling a whole city of candlelight

On the night of Good Friday, Larantuka has almost no electric light, only candlelight. The whole town carries a candle in hand, moving slowly along the streets, the flames joining into a river flowing quietly by the dark harbour. The air holds the salt of the sea and the smell of melting wax; no clamour, only low prayer, and the sound of waves against the shore.

This is Semana Santa — the Holy Week tradition Portuguese missionaries brought to Flores Island over four hundred years ago. Legend says that in 1510 a statue of the Virgin drifted ashore at Larantuka with a sunken Portuguese ship, and the locals, calling her Tuan Ma, have enshrined her ever since. In Indonesia, a mostly Muslim country, this small town at the island's eastern end has kept a Portuguese-style Catholic Good Friday generation after generation, even the procession of the holy image travelling part of the way by sea — the town is even called the "City of the Rosary Virgin."

An old woman shields the wind carefully with her palm, guarding the candle in her hand that the sea wind keeps nearly putting out, praying low as she walks, a gesture she has surely made all her life. The statue of Tuan Ma is brought out only on this one day a year, veiled in mourning black, borne station by station through the small town, and at each place she passes, more candlelight falls in behind.

One stretch of the procession goes by sea: the image is taken aboard a boat, moving slowly along the night bay, the people on shore raising their candles to greet it, a swaying line of light reflected on the water's surface. Standing by the harbour, the sea wind cool, the wax dripping a little hot on the back of the hand, the prayer carrying over in waves from afar, taken up again by the sound of the waves. In that moment you forget whether you believe; you feel only the whole town doing, lightly and with great care, one same thing.

The lanes are narrow, the walls of the old houses on either side warmed yellow by candlelight, a small altar set in each doorway, spread with white cloth, set with fresh flowers. The wind blows in off the sea, hundreds of candle flames leaning together the same way, then slowly righting together; that whole field of faintly swaying light holds the breath more than any grand illumination.

The procession ends only deep in the night. I followed the candlelit line a stretch, not of the faith, unable to understand the prayers, yet that town of quiet flame slowed me all the same. I stood by the harbour, watching the last few candles sway faintly in the sea wind — and I think you too will understand that some devotion does not need you to understand it, only needs you to happen to be there, to happen to be willing, to keep it company quietly through this one night.