Ask anyone what their favorite Christmas carol is and the top of most everyone\u2019s list is \u201cSilent Night.\u201d\u00a0Composed in 1818 by an Austrian organist and schoolteacher, Franz Gruber, it will soon reach its 200th anniversary, 200 years of carolers, choirs, churches, organists, pianists, guitarists and people like you and me finding \u201cheavenly peace\u201d in its words and music. Here are a few keys to its enduring popularity. For a faith lift this Christmas or any time of year plug into \u201cSilent Night.\u201d<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to sing.<\/strong> 2)\u00a0 The tune is unforgettable.<\/strong> 3)\u00a0 Everybody knows it.<\/strong> 4)\u00a0 The song is a prayer.<\/strong> 5)\u00a0 It will bring you inner peace.<\/strong> Ask anyone what their favorite Christmas carol is and the top of most everyone\u2019s list is \u201cSilent Night.\u201d\u00a0Composed in 1818 by an Austrian organist and schoolteacher, Franz Gruber, it will soon reach its 200th anniversary, 200 years of carolers, choirs, churches, organists, pianists, guitarists and people like you and me finding \u201cheavenly peace\u201d in its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":31151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[397],"tags":[72,80],"ppma_author":[476],"class_list":["post-25028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-quotes-verses","tag-stories-of-faith","tag-stories-of-hope"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nA long-standing myth holds that the church organ was on the blink back in 1818 when Franz Gruber had to compose his piece, and he needed a tune that would go well with a few basic guitar chords. Whether the story is true or not, the tune works beautifully with almost any accompaniment. All it takes is a few chords.<\/p>\n
\nMy dad loved to sing and always sat in the front pew at church where he could bellow out the hymns as loud as he pleased. Unfortunately he wasn\u2019t always on pitch. As I liked to tease him, \u201cDad you have a few really good notes. And sometimes they happen to be the right notes.\u201d No matter. I was always happy to sing \u201cSilent Night\u201d next to him. We could always claim that the notes he was hitting were part of the harmony!<\/p>\n
\nA very true and poignant story of the troops in the trenches during the first Christmas of the First World War, Germans on one side, British and French on the other, tells of the truces they held that bloody year, 1914. The sworn enemies ventured into no man\u2019s land and greeted one another and several reports have them singing carols. The one surefire tune that everybody knew was \u201cSilent Night.\u201d No matter that its words were first written in German, \u201cStille Nacht.\u201d It had been translated by then into English and French. Today it exists in some 140 languages.<\/p>\n
\nNo wonder the troops sang it, it expresses our yearning for peace, at the heart of our faith. All was not anymore calm in 1818 than in 1914 than in 2015, but we welcome the Christ Child with a tune that\u2019s almost a lullaby: May he sleep in heavenly peace as we worship in a heaven-sent peace, the only one that could ever be truly lasting. \u201cJesus, Lord at thy birth,\u201d we sing, celebrating the baby who will change the world and continues to change it.<\/p>\n
\nI was reminded of this recently when I sang \u201cSilent Night\u201d in Times Square, of all places. Hundreds of tourists swarmed around me, the billboards were flashing their garish lights, and just when I came to \u201cAll is calm\u201d a loud horn honked. You can hear it here. No need to stop singing, though. The night was not silent, but the message of Christmas was still clear. Christ the Savior is born, Christ the savior is born.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"