In 1818, a roving band of actors
was performing in towns throughout the Austrian Alps. On December 23 they
arrived at Oberndorf, a village near
Unfortunately, the St. Nicholas'
church organ wasn't working and would not be repaired before Christmas. (Note: some versions of the story point to mice as
the problem; others say rust was the culprit.) Because the church
organ was out of commission, the actors presented their Christmas drama in a
private home. That Christmas presentation of the events in the first chapters
of Matthew and Luke put assistant pastor Josef Mohr in a meditative mood.
Instead of walking straight to his house that night, Mohr took a longer way
home. The longer path took him up over a hill overlooking the village.
From that hilltop, Mohr looked
down on the peaceful snow-covered village. Reveling in majestic silence of the
wintry night, Mohr gazed down at the glowing Christmas-card like scene. His
thoughts about the Christmas play he had just seen made him remember a poem he
had written a couple of years before. That poem was about the night when angels
announced the birth of the long-awaited Messiah to shepherds on a hillside.
Mohr decided those words might
make a good carol for his congregation the following evening at their Christmas
eve service. The one problem was that he didn't have any music to which that
poem could be sung. So, the next day Mohr went to see the church organist,
Franz Xaver Gruber. Gruber only had a few hours to come up with a melody which
could be sung with a guitar. However, by that evening, Gruber had managed to
compose a musical setting for the poem. It no longer mattered to Mohr and
Gruber that their church organ was inoperable. They now had a Christmas carol
that could be sung without that organ.
On Christmas Eve, the little
Oberndorf congregation heard Gruber and Mohr sing their new composition to the
accompaniment of Gruber's guitar.
Weeks later, well-known organ
builder Karl Mauracher arrived in Oberndorf to fix the organ in St. Nicholas
church. When Mauracher finished, he stepped back to let Gruber test the
instrument. When Gruber sat down, his fingers began playing the simple melody
he had written for Mohr's Christmas poem. Deeply impressed, Mauracher took
copies of the music and words of "Silent Night" back to his own
Alpine village, Kapfing. There, two well-known families of singers — the
Rainers and the Strassers — heard it. Captivated by "Silent Night,"
both groups put the new song into their Christmas season repertoire.
Silent night! holy night!
All is calm, all is bright,
'Round yon virgin mother and Child!
Holy Infant, so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
The
Strasser sisters spread the carol across northern
Twenty
years after "Silent Night" was written, the Rainers brought the song
to the
✞ What happened on that silent night changed the world forever. Let us be faithful to tell others of what Jesus did for us.
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