December 25, 2024
One of the most beloved Christmas carols is “Silent Night.” Written originally in German, it has been translated into three hundred languages. It is designated by UNESCO as a World Cultural Treasure. If you have been listening to Christmas music, you certainly have heard “Silent Night” several times during the last several weeks. We will sing it again in this liturgy at Communion time. It is a beautiful hymn, but it is a hymn whose deeper meaning can often be overlooked.
When you first hear it, it seems to be a lullaby to the child Jesus. The first verse ends “sleep in heavenly peace,” and it describes a nearly perfect scene: “silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.” But if you knew of the origins of this song, you would know that they were far from calm or bright. It was written in 1818 by an Austrian priest for his congregation at Christmas time, and his congregation was in crisis. They had just endured a twelve-year war with Napoleon which had devastated the area’s social and political structure. Moreover, a volcano in Indonesia had erupted, sending huge qualities of ash into the air over Europe and radically changing the weather. It began to snow in summertime. Crops failed. There was widespread famine. “Silent Night” was written as a response to these disasters. It is not a lullaby to the baby Jesus, but a faith assertion that even in difficult times there is still a God who loves us. It is meant as a consolation for those struggling to believe in times of desperation and loss. The last verse of this song (which is hardly ever sung) ends with “Jesus, God’s promise of peace,” peace for a broken world. This hymn is a restatement of the promise of the angels that we heard in today’s gospel, the promise that there can be peace on earth.
I believe that some who are here tonight could benefit from this deeper meaning of “Silent Night.” Some of us here are carrying heavy burdens—divisions in our family, depression, opposition against our sexual identity, grief over someone we have lost in death. If we are carrying such burdens, we need to hear the Christmas message that peace is possible, that hope can endure. We need to believe that God who loved us enough to give us his only son is a God who loves us still.
That, of course, is a message that all of us here tonight need to hear. If you are here tonight and everything in your life is as it should be, if—as another Christmas carol says—this is the “most wonderful time of the year,” then you have come to the right place. We gather here together tonight to give thanks to God for all of the joys of the season: for family gatherings, for plentiful food, for warm expressions of love. But if you come tonight and your life is not particularly calm or bright, you have also come to the right place. For this is the place where we stand together and encourage each other to believe that God is always for us, that God will not forget us, that God will give us the strength to continue. We are all different. In this Christmas season, not everyone can have a “silent night.” But we can all have a “holy night,” because a holy night flows from God’s love for us. And that love is everlasting.
Merry Christmas!
Thank you, once again, Fr. G for your sharing a greeting, and a special “window” into what was going on when “Silent Night” was composed.
I miss you but I am grateful that you have this site to share yourself and your wishes with us. Also….. Best Wishes on your special day this week and through the year.