God Rest Ye Merry

A number of years ago, our friend Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things, made a nice observation about his experiences of successive Christmases that has stuck in my mind as something equally true for me, and perhaps for many of us. He said that every year there seems to be a particular Christmas carol that grabs his attention early in the season, often because one particular line or image in that carol suddenly opens itself, revealing a fresh meaning that he’d never before noticed.

I’ve had the same experience. I remember being struck a couple of years ago when, in listening to “O Holy Night,” a song I always tended to find tediously schmaltzy, I noticed the words “Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.” Maybe it was just a quirk of timing, but the words hit me forcibly, and I wondered why I had never noticed them before, even though I’d long ago committed the lyrics to memory. It could have been partly because there are several “translations” into English, which vary wildly in the ways they render that phrase (and bear little resemblance to the French). But the more general point stands. And I now listen to “O Holy Night” with new respect.

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