Showing posts with label Selah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Selah. Show all posts
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 17, 2013
The Story of "O Come O Come Emmanuel."
By Dr. Jeff Sanders
I have loved singing this song at Christmas time. The tune is slow and majestic and "haunting" and thrilling. The theology of the words is impeccable. The song is ancient. . . . and the author is unknown. We have no idea who wrote this. Just some monk sometime before 800 A.D. A time in history we often call "the Dark Ages." Civilization, it seemed, had broken down and mankind was sliding backwards into more chaos, ignorance, pestilence, and unending warfare. But someone, somewhere in a monastery in Europe, penned a song that would reach across the ages to encourage and thrill millions even in the 21st century. Who knew?
During those "Dark Ages" the Bible was inaccessible for most people. But the monk who composed this song must have had a full and rich knowledge of Scripture. The song displays a wealth of phrases from Old Testament prophecies that speak of the coming of the Messiah. He is "the rod of Jesse," the "Dayspring from on high," the "Key of David," and "Wisdom from on high." For the people of the Medieval world who did not have a Bible to read, this was a teaching tool, expressing the hope and truth of Christmas--- the fulfillment of ancient prophecies in the birth of Christ.
But how did this tune become so popular worldwide? In the early 19th century an Anglican priest named John Mason Neale was reading through an ancient book of hymns called the "Psalteroium Cantionum Catholicarum." (Some people golf for relaxation; Fr. Neale read ancient hymns I suppose.) Rev. Neale was a brilliant, but frail gentleman. He could write and speak over twenty languages (!), and should have been a leading scholar/preacher of the Anglican church. Apparently many were jealous of his intellectual prowess, and so through political chicanery he was shunted off to labor in some forgotten church in the Madeira islands near Africa.
But he did not despair.
On a paltry salary he established an orphanage, a school for girls, and a ministry to evangelize and reclaim prostitutes. And while he was tirelessly educating and evangelizing, Rev. Neale came across this hymn of faith in a Latin text. The tune that went with the text was from a 15th century French Franciscan convent of nuns ministering in Portugal. Rev. Neale easily translated the Latin into English and gave the world a song. Soon his translation made it to England, and from there "across the pond" to America and around the world.
A gift was penned by unnamed monks over 1200 years ago. Given a tune by nuns in an obscure convent. Rediscovered by a forgotten evangelist off the coast of Africa. The song of Emmanuel--- "God with us." Hidden for centuries but now enjoyed by millions worldwide. No one does it alone. God is the One who orchestrates history. And the theme of His song is "Emmanuel."
O Come Thou Dayspring come and cheer/ our spirits by Thine Advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night/ and death's dark shadows put to flight;
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel
Read more at - http://www.aproundtable.org/history-blog/blog.cfm?ID=880&AUTHOR_ID=9
Dec 24, 2012
O Come, O Come Emmanuel - Selah
John Mason Neale, Translator of O Come, O Come Emmanuel
He was born in London, his parents being the Revd Cornelius Neale and Susanna Neale, daughter of Dr John Mason Good. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where (despite being said to be the best classical scholar in his year) lack of ability in mathematics prevented him taking an honours degree. John Mason Neale was named after the Puritan clergyman and hymn writer John Mason (1645-1694), of whom his mother Susanna was a descendant.
At Cambridge Neale was affected by the Oxford Movement and helped to found the Cambridge Camden Society (afterwards known as the Ecclesiological Society). Though he took orders in 1841, ill health prevented his settling in England until 1846, when he became warden of Sackville College, an alms-house at East Grinstead, an appointment which he held till his death.
In 1854 Neale co-founded the Society of Saint Margaret, an order of women in the Anglican Church dedicated to nursing the sick. Many Anglicans in his day, however, were very suspicious of anything suggestive of Roman Catholicism. Only nine years earlier, John Henry Newman had encouraged Catholic practices in the Anglican Church, and had ended up joining the Roman Catholic Church himself. This encouraged the suspicion that anyone like Neale was an agent of the Vatican, assigned to destroy the Anglican Church by subverting it from within. Once Neale was attacked and mauled at a funeral of one of the Sisters. From time to time unruly crowds threatened to stone him or to burn his house. He received no honor or preferment in England, and his doctorate was bestowed by Trinity College (Connecticut). However, his basic goodness eventually won the confidence of many who had fiercely opposed him, and the Sisterhood of St. Margaret survived and prospered.
Neale was strongly high church in his sympathies, and had to endure a good deal of opposition, including a fourteen years' inhibition by his bishop. Neale translated the Eastern liturgies into English, and wrote a mystical and devotional commentary on the Psalms. However, he is best known as a hymn writer and, especially, translator, having enriched English hymnody with many ancient and medieval hymns translated from Latin and Greek. More than anyone else, he made English-speaking congregations aware of the centuries-old tradition of Latin, Greek, Russian, and Syrian hymns.
At Cambridge Neale was affected by the Oxford Movement and helped to found the Cambridge Camden Society (afterwards known as the Ecclesiological Society). Though he took orders in 1841, ill health prevented his settling in England until 1846, when he became warden of Sackville College, an alms-house at East Grinstead, an appointment which he held till his death.
In 1854 Neale co-founded the Society of Saint Margaret, an order of women in the Anglican Church dedicated to nursing the sick. Many Anglicans in his day, however, were very suspicious of anything suggestive of Roman Catholicism. Only nine years earlier, John Henry Newman had encouraged Catholic practices in the Anglican Church, and had ended up joining the Roman Catholic Church himself. This encouraged the suspicion that anyone like Neale was an agent of the Vatican, assigned to destroy the Anglican Church by subverting it from within. Once Neale was attacked and mauled at a funeral of one of the Sisters. From time to time unruly crowds threatened to stone him or to burn his house. He received no honor or preferment in England, and his doctorate was bestowed by Trinity College (Connecticut). However, his basic goodness eventually won the confidence of many who had fiercely opposed him, and the Sisterhood of St. Margaret survived and prospered.
Neale was strongly high church in his sympathies, and had to endure a good deal of opposition, including a fourteen years' inhibition by his bishop. Neale translated the Eastern liturgies into English, and wrote a mystical and devotional commentary on the Psalms. However, he is best known as a hymn writer and, especially, translator, having enriched English hymnody with many ancient and medieval hymns translated from Latin and Greek. More than anyone else, he made English-speaking congregations aware of the centuries-old tradition of Latin, Greek, Russian, and Syrian hymns.
Dec 23, 2012
O Holy Night - Selah
In 1847 Placide Cappeau (1808-1877), a French wine merchant and an amateur poet, was asked to write a Christmas poem by a local parish priest. Shortly afterwards Cappeau traveled to Paris on a business trip and about half way through his journey, he had the inspiration for the poem Minuit, Chretiens ("Midnight Christians"). When Cappeau arrived in Paris, he took it to the composer Adolphe Adam (1803-1856), a friend of a friend. Adam, who specialized in light opera, is best remembered today for the ballet Giselle. He wrote the tune in a few days and the hymn was played for the first time at midnight mass that Christmas Eve back in his home town of Roquemaure. The carol was frowned upon by church authorities, who denounced it for lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion." Many churchmen felt that Adam, a composer of light operatic works and ballets, was an inappropriate composer of a religious song. However within a few years the carol was being translated into other languages and in 1855, an American Unitarian clergyman John Sullivan Dwight (1813-1893), the editor of Dwight's Journal of Music, translated it into English, calling it "O Holy Night."
This carol has the distinction of being the first song ever to be played live on a radio broadcast. On December 24, 1906 a Canadian inventor, Reginald Fessenden, broadcast one of the first ever AM radio programs, and the first ever to feature entertainment and music for a general audience, from his Brant Rock, Massachusetts station. After playing Handel's "Largo" on an Ediphone phonograph, he proceeded to play "O Holy Night" on his violin, singing the last verse as he played. He finished the broadcast by reading various passages from the Gospel of Luke, before wishing his listeners a Merry Christmas.
Read more at - http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=9200
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