The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 2: Silent Night's Story

Inside: What do a poetry-writing priest and a broken organ have in common? Settle in with a warm cup of something and read Silent Night’s story.

Let me set the scene for you. A little church in the sleepy village of Oberndorf, Austria. A priest in desperate need of a song. A broken organ that wouldn’t be fixed in time for Christmas Eve mass. . .

Father Joseph Mohr needed a song for Christmas Eve mass at St. Nicholas Church, in the absence of a working organ, but what? He’d been inspired to write a poem two years earlier after gazing down upon a small village on a snowy winter’s night and imagining another serene setting in a different time and place. He approached the town’s organist, Franz Xaver Gruber, to compose a melody for his poem, something that could be accompanied by guitar.

By some accounts that song was composed only hours before the mass. Together Father Mohr and Franz Gruber sang “Stille Nacht” for the first time in 1818, at Christmas Eve mass, accompanied by Gruber’s guitar. But the story doesn’t end there.

Weeks later the organ builder Karl Mauracher came to repair the church’s organ, and upon finishing the job he was treated by Gruber to the simple but lovely melody of “Silent Night.” Mauracher loved the song and took copies of the words and music back to his own Alpine village where two famous families of singers–the Strassers and Rainers–heard the song and began to perform it themselves. From there the carol spread around the country and, eventually, to America when the Rainers sang “Stille Nacht” at New York City’s Trinity Church in 1839.

In 1863, “Stille Nacht” became “Silent Night” for the English-speaking world, thanks in part to John Young, an Episcopal priest at Trinity Church. Nearly a decade later, the English version made its debut in Charles Hutchins’ Sunday School Hymnal.

Today the words to “Silent Night” have been translated in more than 300 different languages.

What’s your favorite Christmas carol? Tell us about it in the comments.

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The 12 Posts of Christmas (2017), Day 2: Spiced Nuts
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The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 2: Silent Night’s Story

Inside: What do a poetry-writing priest and a broken organ have in common? Settle in with a warm cup of something and read Silent Night’s story.

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Patsy Reiter

amy@amyharkemoore.com