O Holy Night Catholic Hymn

[Jan Dominquez]

O Holy Night" (original title: Cantique de Nol) is a sacred song about the night of the birth of Jesus Christ, described in the first verse as 'the dear Saviour', and frequently performed as a Christmas carol. Based on a French-language poem written in 1843 by poet Placide Cappeau, it was set to music by composer Adolphe Adam. The English version, with small changes to the initial melody, is by John Sullivan Dwight.

In Roquemaure, France, at the end of 1843, the town's church organ had recently been renovated. To celebrate the event, the parish priest persuaded poet Placide Cappeau, a native of the town, to write a Christmas poem.[1] Cappeau's original poem began with the line, "Minuit, Chrtien, c'est l'heure solennelle" (Midnight, Christian, is the solemn hour).

Unitarian minister, music critic, and editor of Dwight's Journal of Music, John Sullivan Dwight, adapted the song into English in 1855.[3] This version became popular in the United States, especially in the North, where the third verse (including "Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, And in His name all oppression shall cease") resonated with abolitionists.[1]

The wide vocal range of the song makes it one of the more difficult Christmas songs for a singer to execute properly.[4] In French-language churches, it is commonly used at the beginning of the Midnight Mass.[5]

Adolphe Adam described Cantique de Nol as "a religious Marseillaise", in reference to the 1792 song that became the national anthem of France, around the time of the French Revolution of 1848.[6] As early as 1864, the Revue de Musique Sacre, a publication focused on Catholic liturgical music, noted that Minuit Chrtiens was sung in the streets, in bars, and at other social gatherings, and that the song had become "debased and degenerated". While not banned, the song was rarely included in the hymnals in France, despite its growing international popularity.[6] Official French publications of Catholic music described Cappeau as a socialist and a drunk, and a falsehood about Adam being Jewish circulated; in 1930 Vincent d'Indy published an article that praised Richard Wagner and claimed that Jewish composers, including Adam, were only motivated by financial interest.[6]

On September 22, 1936, the Catholic Church in Canada banned "O Holy Night" from being performed in churches, along with other songs including wedding marches, the Canadian national anthem, and many versions of Ave Maria, including those by composers such as Franz Schubert, Charles Gounod, Pietro Mascagni, and Jules Massenet.[7] Per the secretary of the archbishop, the reason for the ban of these songs was the desire for the promotion and exclusive use of Gregorian chant and Gregorian music.[7]

While I can no longer remember who said it and in which class, I recall being taught in seminary that we learn much of our theology from hymn writers. And, at least for me, there is no greater season of the Christian year than Christmas for beautiful hymn tunes and poignant lyrics.

Many of the songs played over store speakers and radio waves during the ever-extending Christmas period of the year are not hymns. The messages that they convey range from reindeer antics to unwelcome advances on a cold winter night. Some are cute, others much too long and repetitive, and still others a cheerful reminder of the season.

One of my favorite Christmas hymns was introduced to me when I was a young adult with a 2-year-old daughter. I learned it at a church choir practice and thought it was mournfully beautiful. It is not one of the more popular Christmas hymns and at the time I appreciated its obscurity, at least to me. But more, I appreciated its simplicity in telling the story of the birth of Jesus in such a compelling way.

This season, it was one of the carols spontaneously sung at a Delta Airline counter in the Atlanta airport on Nov. 27, 2023, a nice contrast to some of the less civil encounters on one of the highest travel days of the year, the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Truly He taught us to love one another;His law is Love and His gospel is Peace;Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,And in his name all oppression shall cease,Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we;Let all within us praise his Holy name!

In 1847, the carol was premiered by a famous French opera singer, Emily Laurey, and in 1855 it was translated into English by a Unitarian Universalist pastor, John Sullivan Dwight, who felt strong parallels to the aforementioned stanza and the on-going civil unrest in the United States over slavery.

Placide Cappeau, the lyricist was allegedly an atheist, and Adolphe Adams, the composer, was believed to be Jewish, which poised a problem for church officials who discovered these connections years after the carol had gained popularity in France.

For me, the lyrics being written by someone who was atheist or disinterested in the church broadens the reach of the hymn and the scope of its message. Focusing on humanity more than divinity is at the very heart of the Incarnation, which is a humbling experience.

If the music was written by a Jewish person, what an honor for the birth of the Jewish Jesus to be captured in the powerful melody of a hymn that inspires such devotion and praise. And if the translation into English by a Unitarian Universalist minister resulted in an abolitionist anthem that influenced the freedom of slaves during the Civil War, I am grateful.

The origins of this beloved song are fascinating. The year was 1847 in a French village, and the local priest made an unusual request of the local wine commissioner, and not-very-religious Placide Cappeau. The priest asked this infamously worldly village man to write a poem for Christmas mass.

Cappeau was so pleased with its outcome, he asked a highly educated musician friend of his to write music to accompany the poem. His friend Adolphe Charles Adams, agreed with a smile. Why is this worth mentioning? Because Adams was a Jew. The song was performed at Christmas mass and the French village immediately embraced it. However, years later upon discovering the lyricist was a worldly man (and now a well-known socialist) and that the composer was a Jew, the church banned the beloved Christmas song. Parishioners continued to sing it in their own homes behind closed doors.

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

O, Holy Night is my favorite song anytime of the the year. He brings me great joy and comfort to hear it song. I feel every word pulsating through my soul. It is as if God is speaking through every word no matter who wrote it. For I believe, it is a glorious miracle!

The crowd was packed in shoulder to shoulder in winter coats, with people standing around the edges so there was barely room for the Knights in their capes to elbow a path down the aisle. There was pageantry and trumpetry and orchestral interludes, all of it still ringing back out of the high vaults even after the last notes sounded. It was a service with lots of high points, like a great symphony that ebbs and flows.

Without any question, however, there was one outstanding highlight of the occasion every Christmas Eve that we always looked forward to. It was the reason we went year after year: it was when Beverly Freiheit stood up and sang O Holy Night. She had a voice that carried you with it right up to glimpse the edge of the sublime realms, and when she sang you would discover that you were holding your breath, to have every bit of your attention riding right along on the hymn.

We were just a bunch of irreverent teenagers, rough around the edges and barely even willing to be seen in a church, but there was in us a yearning, with such hunger, for some kind of honest emotion in the holiday season. None of the store-bought holiday meant anything to us, and not one of us understood what the religious backdrop meant, but we wanted so badly to be part of a tradition and have it move us somehow.

The one thing in all of the season that had reality, the one instance when all that tradition rang true, was when Bev Freiheit sang. In those few fleeting and precious moments there was no denying that something huge and timeless passed through our puny lives.

The service passed as a dream and was nearly over when there fell a quiet pause, and then out of the darkness came the first sounds of a violin, playing a prelude as introduction for the familiar Christmas Eve hymn. First tentatively, then more surely and with confidence it laid a path through the quiet for the voice to follow. It was O Holy Night and, unbelievably, the voice was Beverly Freiheit.

It was the ultimate paradoxical reversal: we had all expected her to cry and we wanted to lend her support, but instead she transcended above the pain and we were the ones who were all sobbing. It was like somehow, for a few moments, we all stepped in and took her part so she could be free to take a new role: that of an angel, and one who had come to comfort us.

The holiday season in our hearts is accumulated layer upon layer through the years: joy and sorrow, life and loss tempering the shadows of time to carve a many-dimensional form out of memory that has a vitality all its own. The past is ever there beside and within the present.

It was 205 years ago when "Silent Night" was first heard by Austrian villagers attending Christmas Eve mass in St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf. How did this simple melody, with its words of comfort, become a beloved hymn of peace throughout the world?

"Silent Night" is about a calm and bright silent night, and the wonder of a tender and mild newborn child, words written in 1816 by a young priest in Austria, Joseph Mohr, not long after the Napoleonic wars had taken their toll.

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