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Show Candles i Light thelMyto Christmas 1: Long before the world knew Christ, man associated the light of the candle with J' spiritual longings. The Old f Testament refers frequent)-to frequent)-to the candle as a symbol of 'I spiritual light. The Christians were quid; to adopt the candle as a symbol sym-bol especially suitable to their beliefs. Thus the candle can-dle is close to the heart of ; " Christmas. It is a beloved tradition in many aspects: candles in the windows to r light the coming of the L-Christ-Child on Christmas :, Eve; the Christmas candlelight candle-light service; candles on the Christmas tree for centuries. i before they were replaced, r for safety's sake, by electric bulbs. And because Christ had -referred to Himself as the Light of the World, and as- . serted diat even" Christian was a light, the Christians P naturally placed candles on . their altars to remind them . of this teaching. !7 "'' For the Medieval church. . tradition dictated that candles can-dles be made of beeswax. , This idea had its origin in . the belief that bees came to earth direct from heaven. Throughout the Middle -Vc -it was common to keep , swarms of bees at religious establishments. Candlemas Day. still observed ob-served in some churches on l Ybn.arv 2. was instituted 1 m the 11th century. On that dav. candles were W and Scripture was read describing de-scribing the candle as W svmbol of the Christ, love for the Christ that dwelis within hiin j |