31 Days of Song, Day #31

It's the last day!  I'm glad that I'm done with this, but kind of sad at the same time!  I think two of the things I've learned most over this past month is: (1) music is a critical part of Christmas, if just simply by bringing to mind the fact that God became a man and by turning our thoughts to Him; (2) the truths of Christmas continue throughout the entire year--just because December is over doesn't mean these songs and that story are meaningless.  If anything, it's all more important to remember throughout the year!

I honestly kind of ran out of songs towards the end of the month.  It's hard to come up with 31 good Christmas songs!  However, in light of my last point in the paragraph above, I actually found a song that sings about just that!

And that's a wrap! (till next year, at least)

31 Days of Song, Day #30

Today I got some extra hours at work, and tomorrow I'm working an 8-hour shift.  I don't really want to, but hurray for more money! :)

"O Little Town of Bethlehem" is another classic Christmas song that's really hard to find a good version of!  I pretty satisfied with this one though.  Enjoy!

* Bethlehem . . . though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel.  Micah 5:2

At nearly six feet six, weighing three hundred pounds, Phillips Brooks cast a long shadow.  He was a native Bostonian, the ninth generation of distinguished Puritan stock, who entered the Episcopalian ministry and pastored with great power in Philadelphia and in Boston.  His sermons were topical rather than expositional, and he's been criticized for thinness of doctrine.  Nonetheless he's considered one of America's greatest preachers.  His delivery came in lightning bursts; he felt he had more to say than time in which to say it.
   While at Philadelphia's Holy Trinity Church, Phillips, thirty, visited the Holy Land.  On December 24, 1865, traveling by horseback from Jerusalem, he attended five-hour Christmas Eve service at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.  He was deeply moved.  "I remember standing in the old church in Bethlehem," he later said, "close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the Wonderful Night of the Savior's birth."
   Three years later, as he prepared for the Christmas season of 1867, he wanted to compose an original Christmas hymn for the children to sing during their annual program.  Recalling his magical night in Bethlehem, he wrote a little hymn of five stanzas and handed the words to his organist, Lewis Redner, saying, "Lewis, why not write a new tune for my poem.  If it is a good tune, I will name is 'St. Lewis' after you."
   Lewis struggled with his assignment, complaining of no inspiration.  Finally, on the night before the Christmas program, he awoke with the music ringing in his soul.  He jotted down the melody, then went back to sleep.  The next day, a group of six Sunday school teachers and thirty-six children sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem."
   Brooks was so pleased with the tune that he did indeed name it for his organist, changing the spelling to ST. LOUIS, so as not to embarrass him.  The fourth stanza, usually omitted from our hymnbooks, says:

Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed Child,

Where misery cries out to Thee, Son of the mother mild;

Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,

The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.

* excerpt taken from Then Sings My Soul Special Edition by Robert Morgan, pages 52-53

31 Days of Song, Day #29

Today I'm supposed to be going to a tea with some college girls from church.  I'm excited about it!  I'm working on a post about my new year's resolutions, and one of those resolutions is to "build friendships".  Here goes! :)

"His Favorite Christmas Story" by Capital Lights is just a sentimental, sweet song that I really like.  I hope you enjoy it!

31 Days of Song, Day #28

This morning I was struck by some verses I was reading in Jeremiah.  I've never really enjoyed the books of Isaiah or Jeremiah, but I'm getting a lot out of them this time around!  Anyway, I was reading from chapter 33, verses 14-16: 'Behold, days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch of David to spring forth; and He shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety; and this is the name by which she will be called: the LORD is our righteousness.'

The LORD is our righteousness.  Isn't that great?  The only righteousness I could ever have is actually His anyway.  What a blessing!

"Thou Who Wast Rich" is a beautiful song that I found yesterday.  It's not specifically a Christmas song, but it comes very close.  The only information I could find on it was discovered here.

This hymn was written at a particularly difficult time in the history of the missions to China. Missionaries had been captured by the communist Red Army and released in poor health after over a year of suffering. Others had been captured never to be heard from again. In 1934 the young missionaries John and Betty Stam (my great aunt and uncle) were captured in Anhwei and beheaded. The news of these sorrows had reached the mission's headquarters in Shanghai. Though this was a very dangerous time for both the Chinese Christians and the foreign missionaries, Frank Houghton decided he needed to begin a tour through the country to visit various missionary outposts. While traveling over the mountains of Szechwan, the powerful and comforting words of 2 Corinthians 8:9, "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor," were transformed into this beautiful Christmas hymn.

I hope you enjoy it!

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,

All for love's sake becamest poor;

Thrones for a manger didst surrender,

Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,

All for love's sake becomes poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,

All for love's sake becamest man;

Stooping so low, but sinners raising

Heavenwards by thine eternal plan.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,

All for love's sake becamest man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,

Saviour and King, we worship thee.

Emmanuel, within us dwelling,

Make us what thou wouldst have us be.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,

Saviour and King, we worship thee.

-- Frank Houghton

31 Days of Song, Day #27

Today is a nice, relaxing day.  I plan on doing a lot of reading, some cleaning, etc.  I love getting ready for a new year!

"O Come All Ye Faithful" is a song I've really been thinking about lately, especially the chorus.

O come, let us adore Him

Christ the Lord

Do I really adore Him?  Do I realize that that little Baby was God too?  I was trying to explain this to Chloe the other day, and it's really very difficult.  I want to adore Him, though, more and more.

* And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him.  And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Matthew 2:11

John Francis Wade, author of this hymn, was hounded out of England in 1745.  He was a Roman Catholic layman in Lancashire; but because of persecution arising from the Jacobite rebellion, streams of Catholics fled to France and Portugal, where communities of English-speaking Catholics appeared.

   But how could he, a refugee, support himself?  In those days, the printing of musical scores was cumbersome, and copying them by hand was an art.  In the famous Roman Catholic College and Ministry Center in Douay, France, Wade taught music and became renowned as a copyist of musical scores.  His work was exquisite.

   In 1743, Wade, thirty-two, had produced a copy of a Latin Christmas carol beginning with the phrase Adeste Fidelis, Laeti triumphantes.  At one time historians believed he had simply discovered an ancient hymn by an unknown author, but most scholars now believe Wade himself composed the lyrics.  Seven original hand-copied manuscripts of this Latin hymn have been found, all of them bearing Wade's signature.

   John Wade passed away on August 16, 1786, at age seventy-five.  His obituary honored him for his "beautiful manuscripts" that adorned chapels and homes.

   As time passed, English Catholics began returning to Britain, and they carried Wade's Christmas carol with them.  More time passed, and one day an Anglican minister named Rev. Frederick Oakeley, who preached at Margaret Street Chapel in London, came across Wade's Latin Christmas carol.  Being deeply moved, he translated it into English for Margaret Street Chapel.  The first line of Oakeley's translation said, "Ye Faithful, Approach Ye."

   Somehow "Ye Faithful, Approach Ye" didn't catch on, and several years later Oakeley tried again.  By this time, Oakeley, too, was a Roman Catholic priest, having converted to Catholicism in 1845.  Perhaps his grasp of Latin had improved because as he repeated over and over the Latin phrase Adeste Fidelis, Laeti triumphantes, he finally came up with the simpler, more vigorous "O Come, All Ye Faithful, Joyful and Triumphant!"

   So two brave Englishmen, Catholics, lovers of Christmas and lovers of hymns, living a hundred years apart, writing in two different nations, combined their talents to bid us come, joyful and triumphant, and adore Him born the King of angels.

O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord

* excerpt taken from Then Sings My Soul Special Edition by Robert Morgan, pages 14-15