Cut crepe paper is used to trim beeswax candles for Moravian Christmas Eve love feasts.
Not really, but many, many scissor cuts go into making the trim that goes onto each beeswax candle used in a Christmas Eve love feast. Just tonight, in fashioning the crepe paper trim for 40 candles, I made about 2,000 cuts. Multiply that to take in all the candles that are trimmed and you get begin to get a sense of what goes into our four annual Christmas lovefeasts. Add to it the mixing of the beeswax, the stringing of the candle molds, the pouring, the pulling, pinning the trim to the candles, and the overall job that Wayne oversees becomes clearer.
Then there are the musicians, the servers, the ushers, the coffee master, the pastors and the people who volunteer to make sure these participants are well fed on the big day. The task is monumental, and it takes months of work and practice to pull off.
But it all seems quite worth it the minute during the ceremony when the dieners stride through the church doors into the darkened sanctuary, carrying trays of candles to the sounds of the Bach hymn “Break forth, o, beauteous heavenly light.” Christ said, “I am the light of the world”, and “you are the light of the world: let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father who is in heaven.”
