Celebrate Christ’s birth with the world’s best Christmas carol — and it’s not the version you think

As the years pass by, it can feel like Christmas has become less about the birth of Christ and his salvific mission and more about secularism and winter.

Look no farther than some of the most popular “Christmas” carols of the past 100 years: “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Deck the Halls,” “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” and on and on.

This Christmas, as you gather with your family, return to the meaning of the holiday — the birth of Christ — by reflecting on the original French version of “O Holy Night.”

The closing lyrics proclaim, without equivocation, that it is Christ who has saved us and we celebrate his coming. In other words, Christ is King!

For those in the French-speaking world, and especially the Acadian and Quebecois diaspora in New England, “Minuit Chretien” was a staple entrance hymn of midnight Mass.

While the English version “O Holy Night” is a beautiful song, the lyrics were adapted by Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight, reducing the theological weight of the original French.

Here are those English lyrics.

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
it is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, O night divine!

According to Chicago Catholic, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the song quickly became popular in Northern U.S. abolitionist circles due mainly to its third verse, which deals with breaking the chains of slavery.

Truly He taught us to love one another.
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
and in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we.
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever!
His power and glory evermore proclaim!
His power and glory evermore proclaim!

Again, this is beautiful, but it downplays the truly salvific mission of Jesus Christ, God incarnate.

Before examining the French lyrics and their literal English translation, listen to the definitive version of the song, sung by Luciano Pavarotti at Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal, Quebec, in 1978. The concert in which he sang this rendition was a long-standing PBS Christmas special.

French lyrics

Here are the French lyrics, as compiled by the Oxford International Song Festival.

Minuit, Chrétiens, c’est l’heure solennelle,
Où l’homme Dieu descendit jusqu’à nous
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de son Père arrêter le courroux.
Le monde entier tressaille d’espérance
À cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur.
Peuple, à genoux, attends ta délivrance.
Noël, Noël, voici le Rédempteur.

The tone is set right at the start. The verse boldly announces that this song is for believers. “Midnight, Christians, it is the holy hour.”

There is no mistaking this for secularism or a postmodern, easy Christianity. It calls the listener to remember that he is Christian and that Christmas is about the coming of the Savior, as the second line says, “When God as man descended unto us.”

The next part boldly proclaims the reason Christ became man: to save mankind from the stain of original sin. “To erase the original stain, and to end the wrath of His Father.”

The next two lines are very close to the English translation: “The whole world thrills with hope on this night that gives it a Savior.”

The end of the first verse brings it home: “Kneel, people, await your deliverance: Christmas, Christmas, the Redeemer is here!”

A bold declaration of what the night is about: the coming of deliverance that Christ the Redeemer brings!

The second and third verses are as reverent and hopeful as the first. The closing lyrics proclaim, without equivocation, that it is Christ who has saved us and we celebrate his coming. In other words: Christ is King!