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Samenvatting
- Christmas bells call people to worship and ring out the news of Christ’s birth; Fr Francis Hoffman, a Catholic priest, says that on very special occasions bells are rung during the Gloria at Midnight Mass, when the angels’ song returns after Advent.
- Christmas lights stand for Christ, who said, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness” (John 12:46).
- The evergreen wreath is a ring with no end, a sign of the life Christ gives; the New Testament’s word for a crown, stephanos, means a wreath.
- “Jingle Bells” is not a religious song: James Lord Pierpont copyrighted it in 1857 as “One Horse Open Sleigh,” and it never mentions Christmas.
- The Christingle began in the Moravian Church in 1747, when children at Marienborn in Germany were each given a lit candle tied with a red ribbon.
- Edward H. Johnson lit the first electric Christmas tree in New York in 1882, with eighty red, white and blue bulbs.
Bibliografie (Klik om te tonen)
- The Bible, King James Version: Luke 2:10, 2:14; Exodus 28:34–35; Zechariah 14:9, 14:20; John 12:46; Psalm 18:28; Matthew 5:15; 1 Corinthians 9:25; James 1:12; Matthew 27:29; Revelation 3:20; Romans 10:18. Text from BibleGateway.
- Herbert Thurston, “Bells”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (New York, 1907).
- Francis J. Hoffman, “Lenten Lessons on the Mass 12: The Gloria”, Relevant Radio, March 2026.
- Clement A. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan (London, 1912), on English Christmas Eve bells and on evergreen decorations, quoting John Stow’s Survey of London.
- Douglas Ullman Jr., “Christmas Bells”, American Battlefield Trust, with the text of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem (1863).
- Snopes, “Was ‘Jingle Bells’ Written as a Christmas Song?”
- W. A. Croffut, report in the Detroit Post and Tribune, December 1882, as transcribed by Today in Science History; Guinness World Records, “First electric Christmas tree lights”.
- Knock Shrine, “The Candle in The Window”, 11 December 2019.
- Moravian Church in Great Britain and Ireland, “The Children’s Christmas Candle Service and Christingles, Part 1”, Moravian Messenger, October 2021.
- Strong’s Greek Lexicon, G4735, stephanos, Blue Letter Bible.
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