{"id":4250,"date":"2024-12-08T21:55:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T02:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4250"},"modified":"2024-12-08T21:56:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T02:56:59","slug":"silent-night-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/08\/silent-night-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>

What Christmas carol has the distinction of being written in its entirety on Christmas Eve?

That would be Silent Night<\/em>, which sprang from a musical 911 call at St. Nicholas\u2019 Church in Oberndorf, Austria, in 1818.

On December 22, assistant priest Josef Mohr learned that the organ made no noise at all. It was indeed going to be a silent night. Apparently some mice with an appetite for organ cables were the culprits.

Mice are famously hungry for everything.<\/em>

The house mouse \u2013 blessed with the splendid Latin name mus musculus<\/em> \u2013 can live in almost any setting. It doesn\u2019t take a Pied Piper to draw them out. No matter where we go, mice are sure to follow.

It hardly seems possible, but an average-sized mouse can squeeze through a hole that\u2019s only 3\/8 of an inch wide. That\u2019s why even well-built homes are no match for a determined mouse when the weather begins to turn cold.

Mice are also extraordinary breeders. Forget dinner and a movie: A female mouse is enthusiastic about motherhood when she\u2019s only six weeks old, and will produce 6-8 offspring every month<\/em> of her life after that.

A single pair of mice, in other words, could produce one million offspring between now and Christmas of next year. Fortunately, food supplies and mouse mortality levels usually keep things from getting out of hand.

Mice do indeed love cheese. But in truth they will nibble on almost anything. Every year they consume a staggering one-tenth of America\u2019s grain crop.

Back in the days of telephone cables, we lost phone service to our house on more than one occasion because mice were nibbling on our cords. It\u2019s thought that as many as one-fourth of all fires of unexplained origin are caused by rodents chewing on wires.

So how did a few mice help bring about what can only be described as a lasting contribution to our celebration of Christmas?

Josef Mohr had 48 hours to improvise something musical for Christmas Eve. He wrote three stanzas of poetry. Could Gruber write a simple tune? Mohr would play the guitar and the two men would sing together. 

Just before the Christmas Eve service they practiced Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht<\/em> for the first time. Then they performed it for mass, never dreaming that \u201cSilent Night, Holy Night\u201d would have such a lasting impact:

Silent night, Holy night! All is calm, all is bright<\/em>
Round yon virgin, mother and child; holy infant, tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.<\/em>

Silent night, Holy night! Son of God, love’s pure light<\/em>
Radiant beams from thy holy face; with the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at thy birth; Jesus, Lord at thy birth.<\/em>

Silent night, Holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight.<\/em>
Glories stream from heaven above; heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah.
Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born.<\/em>

Here\u2019s Josh Groban\u2019s version<\/a> that captures something of the simple beauty of Gruber\u2019s melody.

Gruber faded into obscurity for the next 30 years, when suddenly he recognized what choirs were calling \u201cthe Song from Heaven\u201d as his own. Critics had assumed it was the work of Mozart or Haydn. 

And Josef Mohr?  He ran afoul of church authorities and was transferred to 12 different parishes over a period of eight years. Among other things, his superiors were irritated that he had introduced guitars into worship \u2013 which just goes to show that congregational Worship Committees haven\u2019t changed all that much over the past 200 years.

Thank God for the mice in your life. 

Yes, they may chew right through the plans you have for this week. 

But that may open the door for some surprises you would never have experienced otherwise.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here What Christmas carol has the distinction of being written in its entirety on Christmas Eve? That would be Silent Night, which sprang from a musical 911 call at St. Nicholas\u2019 Church in Oberndorf, Austria, in 1818. On December 22, assistant priest Josef Mohr learned that the organ made no noise at… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-4250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas-carols"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4253,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250\/revisions\/4253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}