Pastor Joe wasn’t sure what to do about the Christmas Eve service. It was always a highlight for the musicians and congregation of his church in their little mountain village. But the electricity had gone out, which meant that not only was there no heat and no lights, but also no power for the organ. They didn’t have a piano, and no one played the accordion. So he consulted with Frank, their organist and choir director. Pastor Joe could play a few things on his guitar, but he only knew three chords. But with Frank’s help they came up with something at the last minute that they could use for the service. It was simple enough for the singers to learn quickly, and which the congregation could pick up easily. Joe wrote the words and Frank wrote a melody that would work with the three guitar chords. And with candles, people could see well enough to sing along. It actually went quite well. When the repairman came later to fix things, they played what they had written to show him how they had managed. He was so impressed by the song and by their ingenuity in coping with the disaster, he copied it down and shared it with others. Soon it was being sung in churches all over every Christmas.
Well, that’s not exactly how “Silent Night” came to be written and sung 202 years ago, but that’s how it would have been told if a similar thing had happened this year (not to mention how the COVID-19 pandemic would have altered the scenario!). Here’s the actual story. It was Christmas Eve, 1818 at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Oberndorf, a Bavarian village in Austria. The young priest, Father Joseph Mohr (1792-1848), had come to the church the year before. He had written the poem “Stille Nacht” two years earlier in Salzburg where he worked as an assistant priest in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The organ at St. Nicholas church was not functioning and could not be repaired until Karl Mauracher, the organ builder who serviced the instrument, could get there weeks later.