Oh Great Mystery

It's official: Christmas is here.

Why do I say this? Because the hymn "Once in Royal David's City" has been sung by the King's College Choir of Cambridge University as part of their Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast worldwide today. This has become, for me, the official start of Christmas.

In liturgical terms, tomorrow is known as the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord. Millions of Christians world-wide tonight will be celebrating Midnight Mass (which occurs earlier and earlier every year) to celebrate the impending birth of Jesus Christ. We'll sing hymns like Joy to the World, O Little Town of Bethlehem and Hark! the Herald Angel Sings. My favorite among these fantastic songs is the O Magnum Mysterium.

O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum
jacentem in praesepio.

Beata virgo cujus viscera
meruent partare Dominum Christum.
Alleluia.

This translates as

O great mystery and admirable sacrament
That animals see the Lord born
Lying in a manger.

Blessed virgin whose viscera
Were worthy to bear Lord Christ.
Alleluia.

Okay, okay, the whole "viscera" thing isn't very pleasant. But it's a lovely text (in Latin) to sing. Perhaps my favorite setting of this text is the Morten Lauridsen arrangement. (A decent, though not great, recording can be found here.) I recorded this song with my church choir in Nashville, and fell in love with it almost instantly. I listened to this recording coming home from work today and cried, as I often do, at the line "Beata virgo." My crying intensified when the song repeated the text, "ut animalia viderent Dominum natum."

That animals see the birth of God.

I so often lose the forest for all the bloody trees that get in my way. I forget that there is suffering in the world beyond my own. How perfect a reminder is the story of the nativity -- a woman, great with child, traveling on a donkey, having to give birth in a stable. Anyone who's ever been in a stable knows how unpleasant that must have been. To me, this is the most absolutely captivating aspect of the nativity story -- that God chose to manifest Himself in such humility; that such an auspicious birth, the start of a life whose end in agony and betrayal would save so many, was witnessed by sheep as much as by angels.

O Great Mystery, we await your coming tonight.