Silent Night, Holy Night,

Sleeps the world, hid from sight.

How many times have we sung those words throughout our lives? They are the opening words from one of the most popular Christmas carols in the language (and in many other languages, as well!) Every Christmas we sing it but how many of us know the story behind it? I admit I had no idea about its origins apart from the fact that originally it was written in German so I assumed that it had come from that part of the world.

It was written in Austria in the early hours of Christmas Eve, almost by accident. On December 23^rd, 1818 the young priest of the church of St Nicholas, Father Josef Mohr, in Oberndorf in Austria was faced with a considerable problem. The church organ had rusted and was unworkable and he was supposed to be leading the Christmas Eve service the following day. That evening he attended the Christmas play that was held in the town and afterwards, desperate for some inspiration, he climbed the hill that overlooked the town. One can imagine his state of mind! He sat there for a while looking at the sleeping town below, eventually returning home just before midnight. He had a guitar that he could play and he sat down to compose a suitable song to lead the morrow’s service.

As he sat, into his mind came the images of the little town of Oberndorf , sleeping peacefully in the moonlight. ‘Silent night, holy night’, ‘All is calm, all is bright’, ‘Sleep in heavenly peace’. As he imagined how Bethlehem might have looked on that Christmas Eve all those years ago, the words came into his head and the song was written down.

The next day he took the song to his organist, Franz Gruber and asked if he could compose some music before the evening’s service. Gruber rose to the task and within a couple of hours it was done. At the Christmas Eve service, Mohr sang tenor and Gruber bass and all went well.

The carol gradually became well known throughout Europe and in 1834 it was performed before the King of Prussia who was so moved by it, he ordered it to be sung by his cathedral choir every Christmas Eve. The Rainer Family Singers took it to America in 1839 and by the middle of the nineteenth century it was being sung around the world. By this time, no one could remember who had written it and composed the words! Time passed and, eventually, word of the song’s fame came to the tiny villages of Austria. Father Mohr had died of pneumonia in 1848 but Franz Gruber still had the original manuscript, hurriedly composed and written that Christmas Eve over thirty years before, In 1854 he was able to prove to the musical authorities that he had composed the music.

And so we have a beautiful Christmas carol simply because a church organ was unplayable on Christmas Eve. Indeed, God moves in a mysterious way. Next time you sing those now very famous words, remember a young priest on a hilltop looking down at a sleeping town and seeing Bethlehem.