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Breaking Chains
by Fr. Casey
One of the best ways to open a conversation this time of year is to ask for someone’s favorite Christmas songs. You can learn a lot about someone this way. For example, it is telling when someone declares their love for “All I Want for Christmas,” versus, oh I don’t know, the “Wexford Carol.”
Among my top tier is certainly “O Holy Night.” I know for some it’s been overdone, and it’s not included in our hymnal, being better suited for a soloist than a congregation. But I can think of no song that better captures the miracle of the Incarnation than this. Just the first verse alone is better than any Christmas sermon I’ll ever preach.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope – the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
As much as I’ve loved it, only recently did I learn the song’s history. Or, more to the point, how its history makes it even more powerful than I had even known.
The song originated as a French poem, “Minuit, Chrétiens,” by Placide Cappeau, which was set to a tune by Adolphe Adam in the 1840s. About a decade later, the song crossed the Atlantic and ...
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