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| Bartolomé Esteban Murillo |
Lyrics by Placide Cappeau
Of all the carols we sing together this season, can you think of words more visceral and passionate than these from “O Holy Night”?
Fall on your knees!
O hear the angels’ voices!
O night, night divine...
Usually timid, my voice booms and plunges with the fall. My knees threaten to buckle. Do you feel something bodily? Some experience more physical than the mere words of our precious carols? Doesn’t something enter your person? More an embodied than a historical tale, a community tale, or even a flash of hope?
This birth we sing is an incarnating of the best “role model” we could ever find. Human and superhuman, ultra-human; Jesus of Mary is our omega point of love, forever a beacon. We “fall to our knees,” too, then, gaze up and know we are part of something much more.
He appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new glorious morn. Fall on your knees, O hear the angels’ voices. O night divine…
- Mark Leifeste
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