Silent Night and the Shepherds Who Quaked at the Sight

The shepherds of our Nativity Story lived difficult lives in the social strata of the Ancient Near East, but they are summoned by angels to Bethlehem for a reason.

At Christmass by Fr Gordon MacRae

Editor’s Note: Posted at Christmas in 2023, this was Father MacRae’s most popular Christmas post ever. In this week in 2023 it drew some 60,000 readers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Southeast Asia.

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“Silent Night, Holy Night,
Shepherds quake at the sight.
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heavenly hosts sing alleluia.
Christ, the Savior is born,
Christ, the Savior is born!”

— Silent Night, Verse 2

“Silent Night,” one of our most beloved and enduring Christmas hymns, was the result of an accident. It was first heard at the Christmas Midnight Mass in the little church of Saint Nicholas in Oberdorf, Upper Austria in 1818. On Christmas Eve, the church’s organ failed. So in a pinch, the young Austrian village priest, Joseph Mohr, hastily composed some verses for a simple song while organist Franz Gruber just as hastily set them to music.

They finished just in time to sing it at Midnight Mass accompanied by the soft strumming of a guitar. The congregation was mesmerized. The untitled song became known for its first words in German, “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.” In 1839, a group of Austrian folk singers performed it for the first time in the United States where it was translated into English. “Silent Night, Holy Night” quickly became synonymous with Christmas. Just like the season itself this year, the song was written in chaos but became an enduring summons to serenity and the real meaning of Christmas.

As I began to write this post, I was mentally about as far as anyone could be from “All is calm, all is bright,” and “sleeping in heavenly peace.” It is a challenge to write an uplifting Christmas post from my current location, and an even greater challenge to write it in the aftermath of all that has gone on in the Church and the world during Advent this year. It was all the subject of my Christmas post this year entitled “Christmas for Those Bowed Down by the Fatigue of This World.”

On the Birth of the Messiah

There has been a lot of controversy this Christmas about the removal of faithful shepherds whom many of us have come to know and admire. This has happened while apparently less than stellar shepherds have been elevated before our eyes. To be a shepherd was once a difficult life that has become a vocation. There is a lot of attention on the qualities of the Church’s shepherds right now. Let’s go back to the beginning.

Accounts of the infancy and childhood of Jesus appear in only two of the canonical Gospels: Matthew (1:18 – 2:23) and Luke (1:5 – 2:52). The two accounts have only the most basic elements of the story in common: Mary’s virginal conception, and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The Gospel of Matthew alone contains the story of the Magi, the threat posed by Herod, and the Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. The Gospel of Luke alone has the Angel of the Lord summoning shepherds to witness the newborn King.

Some scholars propose that the Gospel’s Infancy Narratives were added later and were of little interest to the early Church. I take the opposite view. Other accounts in the Apocryphal (meaning “hidden”) Gospels arose out of the first two centuries of the Church. They are not included in the canon of inspired Scripture, but they reveal the Early Church’s fascination with the Birth and childhood of Jesus. Their stories were sometimes embellished, but traditions from the earliest times of the Church cling to some of their accounts.

The Apocryphal Gospel of James, preserved in Greek from no later than the early Second Century, is the sole source of the names of Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anna. It is also the only source of the story of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, and a more detailed account of the fears of suspicion about her pregnancy.

The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, of unknown origin, is a later compilation of earlier oral traditions none of which can be measured against history. It has an expanded account of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt from the Gospel of Matthew. It also presents a story only vaguely recalled about the Holy Family’s encounter in the desert with Dismas and Gestas, the names given by Tradition to the two criminals who were later crucified with Jesus. It’s a story I included in “Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found.”

The History of Joseph the Carpenter, of Egyptian origin in the first few centuries, AD, contains stories of the life of Joseph which are not reflected in any of the Gospel narratives. They include an expanded account of the Flight into Egypt and a popular story about his soul being removed by an angel at the time of his death in the presence of Jesus and Mary. These sources and others reflect the popular fascination of early Christians with the Birth of the Messiah and the legitimacy of the accounts that found their way into the Gospels of Matthew and Luke writing from two different traditions. In the Gospel of Luke, for example, it has long been believed that Luke’s source for the story of the Birth of the Messiah was Mary herself.

Moses [when he was a shepherd] Defends Jethro’s Daughters by James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Courtesy of Jewish Museum.

The Biblical Shepherds

Sheep herding was a profession of the common man — or woman — in the ancient world. For the most orthodox Jews in the time of Jesus, it was a position with low social rank and often disdained. It has always plagued the faithful that some religious leaders can become oblivious to the tenets of their own faith. Shepherds were looked down upon even as God Himself was seen as the Shepherd of Israel (Genesis 49:24 and Psalm 80:1). The most popular Scriptural identification of God as shepherd is in Psalm 23:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. In verdant pastures He gives me repose. Beside restful waters He leads me. He restores my soul.”

— Ps. 23: 1-2

There are 123 references to shepherds in Sacred Scripture, beginning with one of the most ancient accounts, the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis (Chapter 4). Scripture depicts an age-old tension between shepherds and those who till the land. Each regarded the other as antagonistic to his interests. Clearing land for farming in the Ancient Near East meant that shepherds had to travel far and wide to find land suitable for grazing. In contrast, the pasturing of flocks damaged both land and crops.

With severe limits in both land and water, this forced shepherds into a nomadic life, and an economic rivalry with agriculture. Sheep had to be led from pasture to pasture as changing seasons required migration over vast distances. Shepherds had to find not only suitable and available grazing, but a water supply. Shepherds had to shelter their flocks in inclement weather and protect them from wild beasts and disgruntled farmers. Scripture is filled with wolf and sheep allegories.

The Prophet Amos was a shepherd, but some Prophetic voices present some shepherds as “unfaithful” (Ezekiel 34:2-10), as “simple-minded” (Jeremiah 10:21), as letting their flocks scatter:

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture—oracle of the LORD.

Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.”

—Jeremiah 23:1-2.

The Scriptural references continue portraying some shepherds: as “leading people astray” (Jeremiah 50:6), as “lacking in grace or understanding” (Isaiah 56:11ff). In our time, some of our most outstanding shepherds are themselves left to wander.

Despite the fact that shepherds were socially frowned upon, God showed favor to many shepherds throughout Scripture, calling them to heroic and pivotal missions. The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis (4:2 and following) has Cain tilling the earth while Abel is a sheepherder, aka, shepherd. When it came time to offer their gifts in sacrifice, Abel’s gift was found to be more pleasing to God resulting in humanity’s first homicide. Many generations later, Jacob, grandson of Abraham, described in a plea to Laban his life as a shepherd:

“It was like this with me: by day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sheep fled from my eyes.”

— Genesis 31:40

Joseph, the Joseph who was the main focus of Genesis chapters 37 to 50, was the youngest of his brothers and a shepherd. Jealous of their father’s favoritism toward him, his brothers sold him to slave traders who took him to Egypt. He later assured their salvation, saving their lives in a time of famine in Israel.

In Egypt, Jews came to be identified as nomadic shepherds and shepherding came to be seen by the Egyptians as an abominable life (Genesis 43:32). Moses, called by God to receive the Covenant, was first a shepherd. Saint Luke’s account of the shepherds called to Bethlehem has an echo of Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai as he received the Commandments:

“And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an Angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear”

— Luke 2:8-9

Adoration of the Shepherds by Bartolome Esteban Murillo. Courtesy of Museo del Prado.

Come to Bethlehem

Many generations later still after Moses, David, a shepherd, boasted of having killed lions with his bare hands when they attacked his father’s flocks. The Birth narrative in the Gospel of Luke also has an echo of King David’s humble origin as a shepherd (1 Samuel 16:1-23). St Luke presents an image of the call of the Shepherds by an Angel of the Lord as being privileged with a vision of King David’s successor. It is presented in language highly reminiscent of a king descended from David:

“Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Then suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts saying, ‘Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace to men with whom he is pleased.”’

— Luke 2 10-14

As mentioned above, elements of Saint Luke’s Gospel account suggest that Mary was herself the source of this information. When the shepherds came to Bethlehem that night and found her with Joseph and the Christ-child just as the angel had said, Mary heard the account of their encounter with the angels and the heavenly hosts in the darkness. When the New Testament speaks of darkness, we cannot really imagine it. With the total absence of any artificial light, their darkness was dark indeed. “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

The Christmas Proclamation traditionally proclaimed from the Roman Martyrology on the Vigil of Christmas begins with creation and connects the birth of the Lord with the major events of both sacred and secular history. The Proclamation reveals something of crucial importance for our time.

Abraham, our Father in Faith, came out of Ur of the Chaldees to encounter God who forged a covenant with Him in the 21st Century before the Birth of Christ. We now live in the 21st Century after His birth. This places Christ the King at the very center of Salvation History from our perspective. It is no mystery that the time in which we live now is so tumultuous, with Earthly Powers vying with Heaven for the souls of humankind. Christ now stands equidistant in time between God’s covenant with Abraham and our present.

We must come to understand the cosmic importance of the time in which we live and the battle for souls being waged here. We must hope and pray that the shepherds of our time come to understand that as well, and live — not just speak, but live — faithfully and courageously, the Gospel we profess.

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: There are plenty of voices in this secular culture trying to suppress the real meaning of Christmas. Please share this post with others. If you are alone at Christmas, or know anyone who is, you and they are invited to spend some time with us. The first of our links below is our annual Christmas post filled with music, videos, and the Christmas Proclamation. We also invite you to Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s Eucharistic Adoration Chapel linked below.

Christmas for Those Bowed Down by the Fatigue of this World

Joseph’s Dream and the Birth of the Messiah

Joseph’s Second Dream: The Slaughter of the Innocents

Upon a Midnight Not so Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear

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The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.

Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.

The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”

For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”

Christmas in the Land of Nod, East of Eden

In the Book of Genesis, Cain was banished to wander for his crime in the Land of Nod, East of Eden. The Star of Bethlehem was the only way back to a State of Grace.

Christmas by Fr. Gordon MacRae

At Thanksgiving this year, we recommended a post entitled “The True Story of Thanksgiving: Squanto, the Pilgrims, and the Pope.” It was more of a history lesson than a typical blog post, but it got a lot of notice. It is said that history is written by the victors, not the vanquished, so my take on Thanksgiving was unusual. It was told from the point of view of Squanto, the man I credit with the survival of the Puritan Pilgrims who — for better or worse — were the spiritual and cultural beginning of the first colonies in the New World.

Please indulge me in another brief foray into history — this time, Biblical history. I just can’t help myself. We can’t understand where we are until we discover where we’ve been. In the Genesis account of the fall of man, Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden as both a punishment and a deterrent. They disobeyed God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So God cast them out of Eden “lest [Adam] put out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever.”

They were cast out of Eden to the east (Genesis 3:24). God then placed a Cherubim with a flaming sword to the east of Eden to bar Man’s return, and to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Whether this is history, metaphor, myth, or allegory matters not. The inspired Word of God in the Genesis account tells us something essential about ourselves in relationship with God.

A generation later, after the murder of his brother Abel, Cain too “went away from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden” (Genesis 4:16). The “land of Nod” has no other reference in Scripture. It represents no known geographical name or place. The name seems to derive from the Hebrew, “nad,” which means “to wander.” Cain himself described his fate in just that way: “from thy face I shall be hidden; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:14).

The Aggadah — a collection of Rabbinic commentary, legend, and anecdotes accumulated over a thousand years — expanded on the Biblical account. The “mark of Cain” imposed by God was a pair of horns. According to the Aggadah legend, Cain’s great-grandson, Lamech, had poor eyesight and shot Cain with an arrow believing him to be a beast. There was a sense of “what goes around comes around” in the Aggadah version.

In Genesis, Cain’s descendant, Lamech, became sort of a counter-cultural anti-hero seen as the epitome of the moral degradation of blood revenge. Lamech killed a man for wounding him. “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Genesis 4:24). Cain’s murder of his brother, and his banishment East of Eden, set in motion a ripple effect of epic proportion.

I have long wondered if the banishment of Adam and Cain “east of Eden” is a divinely inspired metaphor for man’s fall from grace, a state of being, more than a place. Jumping ahead way ahead — the Magi of Matthew’s Gospel came to Christ from the east (Matthew 2:1). They “saw his star in the east” and followed it out of the east — out of what is now likely modern day Iran, a story I told in “Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear.”

I envision the Star of Bethlehem to be a sort of beacon leading the way out of the darkness of the east, the darkness of man’s past, out of the spiritual wanderlust set into motion by Adam and Cain. In the Tanakh translation of the Jewish Scripture — our “Old” Testament — Psalm 113:3 is translated, “From the east to the west the Name of the Lord will be praised.”

Family Values and Woke Politics

Some of the prisoners I see each day are aware that I write weekly for Beyond These Stone Walls. Those who had a recipe published in “Looking for Lunch in All the Wrong Places” invited their families to read that post. Several others asked to read a printed copy of “The True Story of Thanksgiving” and it’s been circulating here a bit. Just a few days ago, a prisoner I do not know asked me if the “Squanto story” is true. Squanto’s plight in my Thanksgiving account caused an interesting reaction, and seemed to inspire discussion about how to best cope with shattered dreams and hopes, with loss and the fall from grace, with life in the land of Nod. The prevailing thought has been that Squanto responded to his bitterness and loss with sacrifice. The irony of what Squanto did is not lost on prisoners.

Captured by a British ship and nearly sold into slavery — his life in ruins and everyone he loved destroyed — Squanto chose to come to the aid of the only people worse off than Squanto himself: the hapless pilgrims who stepped off the Mayflower in winter, 1620. Some prisoners conclude that they need to be more like Squanto. Many of the men around me have lives that spun out of control through drug addiction, poverty, selfishness, rage, or greed. A lot of people imagine that prisoners are just evil, brutal men incapable of considering anyone but themselves. The media’s portrayal of prisoners as brutal, manipulative and self-involved accurately describes only a very small minority.

Evil men do exist, and prisons everywhere contain them, but they are not typical of men in prison. Most men and women in prison simply got caught up in something, made mistakes — some very grave — but are no more evil than your friends and neighbors. Some would give anything to atone for their crimes, to take back the wrongs they have done. Some were victims before they were victimizers. Most are guilty of crimes, but some are not.

Many of the younger prisoners are just lost. There’s a clear correlation between their presence here and the systemic breakdown of family — especially fatherhood — in our culture. There is an alarming number of young prisoners here who have had either abusive fathers or none at all. There is a direct and demonstrable correlation between the breakdown of family and the marked increase in prisoners in our society. For the evidence for this, see the most-read post ever at Beyond These Stone Walls, “In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men.”

Puritans and Empty Pews

Recently, the Pew Research Center published the results of a study that identified the most and least religious areas of the United States. The study based its conclusions on surveys with parameters such as professed belief in God, participation in worship, the importance of religion in daily lives, and the practice of personal prayer. Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas were the most religious states with mostly Southern states rounding out the top ten. In contrast, the six New England states were at the very bottom of the fifty states in religious identity and practice. It’s ironic that the Puritans settled New England in 1620 desiring to build a religiously based society free from Catholic influence. The Puritans wanted religion, but not a church. They wanted religion free of Sacraments and symbols, free of any magisterial teaching authority, a religion of the elect. Over 400 years later, the community they established has now been identified as the least religiously influenced region of the country.

In the Pew study, New Hampshire placed at the very bottom — 50th out of 50 states — with a population professing any sort of religious belief, practice, or a religiously informed value system. In inverse proportion to the influence of religion on its population, New Hampshire now leads the nation in the growth of its prison population in ratio to its citizen population. Almost predictably, it also currently leads the nation in drug overdose deaths among people ages 16 to 54.

In 1980, New Hampshire had 326 prisoners. By 2005, the prison population swelled to 2,500. Between 1980 and 2005, the New Hampshire state population grew 34 percent while its prison population grew nearly 600 percent in the same period, and without any commensurate increase in crime rate. Anyone who is not alarmed by this statistic doesn’t understand the relationship between religious values, family life, crime, and the abandonment of young people to wander east of Eden. Among young men now in the New Hampshire prison system, the recidivism rate is a staggering 57 percent.

There’s a compelling argument here for the preservation of family and the restoration of religion in the American public square. There are far better ways for our society to invest the billions of dollars it now sinks into new prisons. The population in the land of Nod east of Eden is growing fast.

Christmas Gifts

It’s not all gloom and doom. In New Hampshire, at least, there is an emphasis on programs and rehabilitation that present an avenue toward redemption. In the journey out of the east, there are some prisoners who stand out, and their journey is most clearly expressed in their art.

On the eastern end of the Concord prison complex is a workshop known as HobbyCraft. There, prisoner-volunteers make some 1,000 toys per year for the U.S. Marine Corp’s “Toys-for-Tots” program. Several prisoners gifted in woodworking take part in the Toys-for-Tots project each Christmas. They donate their time, their talent and their own materials to create high quality toys and other wood creations for this project.

Among the prisoner-artisans is Mike, a 55-year-old man who has been in prison for over thirty years. Mike has donated his prodigious skill in woodworking for the Toys-for-Tots program. Here are two of his most popular creations:

If there has ever been anyone in your life for whom you have lost hope for redemption, then take some time to read the story of Pornchai Moontri told in “Bangkok to Bangor, Survivor of the Night.” Pornchai’s story is a great example of the connection between conversion to a life of faith and rehabilitation.

Before Pornchai left prison for Thailand in late 2020, he spent his time studying theology through a scholarship program at Catholic Distance University. His creations in the HobbyCraft center have become legendary. Pornchai has mastered the art of model shipbuilding, and was designated a Master Craftsman in basic woodworking. Here are some of his most popular creations:

Two of the magnificent ships he designed and built last year were donated after being featured at the annual Newport Arts Festival. One of Pornchai’s creations was a replica of the U.S.S. Constitution. He carved and fitted each of its over 600 parts, and spent some 2,000 hours on the design, construction and rigging.

One of the first edicts in the Puritan’s Charter for their settlement in New England was to prohibit any observance of Christmas. As these and other prisoners have demonstrated on their journey out of the east of Eden, Christmas became very real after their Advent of the heart.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. December 8, the Solemnity of the Assumption honors the Immaculate Conception, and four days later on December 12 is a most important Feast Day for the Church of the Americas. Honor our Mother by reading and sharing,

A Subtle Encore from Our Lady of Guadalupe

You may also like these related posts linked in the post above:

The True Story of Thanksgiving: Squanto, the Pilgrims, and the Pope

Upon a Midnight Not So Clear, Some Wise Men from the East Appear

In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men