It’s just before Christmas in the late 1950s, and a small child is sitting alone in the front pew of the Andover Baptist Church watching the choir practice hymns for the Sunday Christmas service. The well-worn wooden pew is rock hard, and the child’s feet are damp from the short walk to the church from his grandparent’s house next door. Convinced they made him come so he wouldn’t open all the presents under the tree, he doesn’t want to be there.
His mother is playing the piano, and his grandmother and grandfather are singing in the choir. So is his uncle, whose voice is always one of the loudest. They are singing, “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Even though the child is fidgety, he settles down and listens when he recognizes the melody, especially the beautiful harmonies. As her fingers slide gracefully across the piano keys, his mother looks over at him and smiles.
Standing in line at Sobeys the other day waiting to pay for my eggnog and a few other Christmas treats, I started thinking about “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and those long-ago evenings sitting on that church pew. Seeing everyone in their masks, lined up six feet apart, brought home to me the simplicity and beauty of the lyrics and the powerful sentiment they convey. Considering all that’s happening during this surreal time, those lyrics are more relevant to me now than they have been at any other time in my life.
Although the authorship of “Adeste Fideles,” translated later to “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” remains uncertain, copies of the famous hymn first published in 1751, all bear the signature of the British hymnist John Francis Wade.
Moving my shopping cart closer to the cash, I think about John Francis Wade and what it must have felt like for him to sit in church at Christmas listening to his words and melody. Until his death in 1786, he must have heard all kinds of versions of the inspiring hymn, as has the world since his passing.
For more than 250 years, through good times and bad, “O Come, All Ye Faithful” has inspired people with this simple message: That by believing in something bigger than ourselves, individually and collectively, and by having faith in that belief, and one another, we can come together and more fully share the human experience. That’s my take on it, anyway. Regardless of creed or culture, it’s an enriching message.
During this challenging year, New Brunswickers have come together. Sure, there are problems and issues and different opinions on the pandemic and its consequences, but, overall, we have responded to this crisis well. We should be proud.
The reason we have done so is that we are a people tempered by adversity. Compromise is part of our political and cultural DNA. Buried deep in the collective consciousness of New Brunswick is the belief that through cooperation, we can overcome any challenge, a sentiment best expressed in our provincial motto, Spem Reduxit – Hope Restored.
Let’s be proud of our spirit of compromise and all that we’ve accomplished. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Enough with negativity, complaining and blaming. We will find solutions to the many challenges we face. We always have, and we always will. But we will only do so if we have faith and believe in ourselves and our fellow New Brunswickers.
Given the pandemic, there probably won’t be many choirs singing Christmas carols this year, I think as the woman in front of me squares up with the cashier, and I get ready to unload my cart.
Somewhere though, maybe a small church out in the country, I’ll bet there’ll be a small child sitting on a well-worn wooden pew listening to “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” thinking not only about those unopened presents under the tree at home but also the beautiful words and melody.
“O Come, All Ye Faithful,” indeed!
