Christmas traditions
By RW Bro Ted Simmons
A Christmas story What is the dominant thought which comes to your mind during Christmas celebrations?
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s it the singing of carols, the Christmas tree, the giving of presents or even Santa Claus? Do you ever wonder about these ceremonies and when or how they began? Way back in 1816, Joseph Mohr, a young Catholic priest in the Austrian village of Mariapfarr who may have been affected by the aftermath of the Napoleonic war or a massive local drought, sat down one day and wrote a short poem starting with the words ‘Silent night, holy night’. It was a poem, not a song. Mohr was born in Salzburg in 1792. His mother was an unmarried embroiderer who was deserted by the boy’s father. He was ordained as a priest in 1815 and travelled to many locations in Austria. In 1837 he became pastor in the Alpine village of Wagrain where he died, just before Christmas, at the age of 55 in 1848. In 1817 the young minister had been transferred to the church of St Nikolaus in the nearby village of Obendorf, and
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December 2021
fie very rst carol, written in AD129, didn’t even mention Christmas.
playing the melody on his guitar singing tenor while Gruber sang bass. Normally, that was where a new church melody would stop but organ builder Karl Mauracher came to the village in 1819 to carry out repairs on the organ, heard and took a copy of the music with him. That was the major step which transferred Silent Night from just a poem set to music to one of the great carols in the world.
the poem remained untouched amongst his belongings for two years. He worked as an assistant minister at his new location without any problems until 24 December 1818 when he decided the music presented as part of the church Christmas ceremonies needed a different approach.
Mauracher gave the music to the local Rainer and Strasser folk-singing families who quickly installed it as part of their program. Apart from local performances, they took the carol to the world. In 1822 the Rainers sang it in Russia at the invitation of Tsar Alexander 1, while in 1839 the Strassers introduced Silent Night to the United States.
He decided to set his poem Silent Night to music and sought help from a friend, an Austrian schoolteacher Franz Gruber who was also the church organist and a composer. It took Gruber only a few hours to write the music and the pair performed the song that night but because the organ had broken down Mohr
The singing of carols has been embraced by people of different cultures around the world to create joy and happiness in the best and the worst of times. Without these carols, within the home or sung by a 100 strong choir at church, Christmas would seem bare or like a table without pudding or gifts.
Humility – Kindness – Generosity Freemason
