Christmas Stories Page
Return to the Activities Page
The Story Of SilentNight
(Stille Nacht)
by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
The young priest was worried.
Within 24 hours he was supposed
to lead a Christmas Eve service,
but he had no music.
The Salzach River that flowed
near the village church of
Oberndorf, Austria, caused chronic moisture
which had rusted the pipe organ.
Without the organ there would be no music.
And what was Christmas Eve without music?
Father Josef Mohr had but recently
come to this tiny village.
The night of December 23
he had attended the town Christmas play.
But instead of going home afterwards,
he had climbed the small mountain
overlooking the town and soaked
in the beauty and quiet of the darkness.
It was nearly midnight
before he reached his room.
And so in the wee hours of
December 24, 1818,
he sat down to pen a new song,
one which could
be played on a guitar--
at least that wasn't broken.
"Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!" he wrote.
"Silent night, holy night."
The nighttime peacefulness of
Oberndorf was fresh in his mind;
beyond it he could imagine
Bethlehem, bathed in moonglow:
All is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin Mother and child!
Holy Infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
The words were flowing now.
He could visualize
shepherds quaking,
shaken from the quietness of
their vigil by the glories
streaming from heaven.
He could see the child's countenance:
Son of God,
love's pure light,
Radiant beams from Thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.
It wasn't long 'til the simple
poem was finished.
Now, perhaps he could sleep.
The next morning he brought
the poem to his organist,Franz Grüber.
"I know it's the last minute,"
he must have said,
"but could you put a tune to
this song for the service tonight?
Something simple
that I could accompany on the guitar?"
Father Mohr was new to the parish,
and to the church's chief musician.
But then, Grüber was being paid,
and at that moment his beloved organ
wouldn't work. Grüber set
about the task quickly
and in a couple of hours
he was done, just in time to rehearse
with the choir before the service.
Mohr sang tenor, Grüber sang bass,
and the service
went off beautifully with the new song.
"Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!"
A master organ builder eventually
came to Oberndorf to repair the
rusted organ, and there
learned of the carol.
He copied the song and
doubtless sang it as he worked
on organs in the neighboring villages.
From him, two families of
traveling folk singers,
similar to the Trapp Family Singers
of "Sound of Music"
fame, learned of the song and
sang it in concerts
all over Europe.
In 1834 the Strasser family
performed it for the
King of Prussia, who ordered it sung every
Christmas Eve by his cathedral choir.
The Rainer family singers
brought it to America in 1839.
By mid-century it had become
popular around the world,
but no one could recall its composer.
The story of its fame
was long to reach the tiny
villages of Austria.
But, in 1854, Franz Grüber
sent a letter to the leading
musical authorities with his
claim to have written the tune.
In 1848 Father Mohr had died of pneumonia,
but Grüber still had the
original manuscript to show,
and gradually he was recognized as composer.
Sometimes the smallest churches make the
biggest contributions.
In this case, God presented a most wonderful carol
to the world from a tiny congregation, one that just
happened to be called St. Nicholas' Church of Oberndorf.
[
our Web World]
[
Kiker's Maryland Christmas Display]
[
Activities Page]
[
Sing-along Songs Page]
[
Directions to the Christmas Display]
[
Weather Predictions (in Display Season)]
[
Our Webrings]
[
Adoptions(our extended family)]
[
A Beautiful MG Midget "Li'lAngel]
[
Lances Midget Graphics Page]