It’s a Great Thing to Do a Little Thing Well

The words of the poet Emily Dickinson…

How many Flowers fail in Wood—

Or perish from the Hill—

Without the privilege to know

That they are Beautiful—

How many cast a nameless Pod

Upon the nearest Breeze—

Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight—

It bear to Other Eyes— 

One such flower who never knew he was beautiful was Joseph Mohr, the hymn writer who left us “Silent Night.”  Mohr was born the third out-of-wedlock child to a poor seamstress named Anna Schoiberin, on December 11, 1792, in Salzburg, Austria.  His father was a musketeer who moved on with his army unit, never to be heard from again.

Wanting to christen her son, Anna found that no one was willing to stand in as a sponsor father for her son. The word bastard was being whispered behind knowing smiles. Eventually, however, Franz Joseph Wohlmuth stood in, but was compelled to send a substitute because he was the town executioner, and as such, was forbidden to enter the church building.

After his baptism young Joseph Mohr grew into a talented young man whose voice and charm brought him to the attention of Johann Hiernle, the priest in charge of the cathedral choir. Father Hiernle undertook the child’s education in voice, violin and organ, and later enrolled him in the seminary at Salzburg. On August 21, 1825, Mohr was ordained a priest, a job for which he was particularly unsuited.

You see, Joseph Mohr was a poet at heart, full of gaiety, who loved mixing in with the cowmen and sailors who thronged the local taverns and raised their voices in song. Never strong physically, Mohr had weak lungs and lacked the stamina to handle a church on his own. He was what we today might call an interim priest, one sent in to handle a church until someone better suited and more permanent might be secured.

One such post Mohr was sent to fill was that of assistant priest in St. Nikola Church, Oberndorf,  Austria. There on December 24, 1818, the 26 year old was preparing for a Christmas Eve worship service when he discovered the organ wouldn’t work. A mouse had eaten through the leather bellows the night before and it could not be fixed. What in the world would they do for music in the worship service that night? Why, one couldn’t celebrate Jesus without music! It was then that Joseph Mohr produced a short poem, which he gave to Franz Gruber, the church musician, who set it to music as a sort of mother’s lullaby. And that very night the song was sung in worship with guitar accompaniment for the first time.

The senior priest was outraged that a guitar was used in church. The congregation was disappointed not to have real organ music for their service. Most people never even noticed the hypnotic progression of light the song embodies, a progression that begins with a mother and child, grows as darkness flees and both shepherds and kings visit the Christ child, and ends with us singing His praises in the light of God’s glory shed among us as well.

The new song was quickly forgotten, the music stuck on a shelf to gather dust in a church closet. Father Mohr moved on to another of the ten or so insignificant posts he was to hold during his career. Years later, an organ repairman found the old sheet music, decided it had something to it, and carried it out of the valley where Tyrolean folk singers soon picked it up and gave it to the rest of central Europe.

Today the song has gone around the world, translated into over 90 different languages, and is without a doubt the world’s favorite Christmas carol.

Joseph Mohr never realized what he had done that cold December 24, 1818, in St. Nikola church, Oberndorf. In those few poetic lines something happened that never before happened, and never would for him again. He soared like a lark to heights of beauty and truth in one never-to-be-forgotten flight and never rose so high again.

Mohr died December 4, 1848, in Wagrain. It is said that as he grew older, he sang less and less as his lung condition worsened. Known as a diligent priest who loved Christ and loved people, he had visited a dying elderly lady on a distant farm to administer last rites, caught a cold retuning, developed pneumonia and died. His only personal effects were a worn out guitar, a much-patched overcoat and a prayer book. So destitute was he that he had to be buried at town expense. His grave has never been located.

Joseph Mohr, a soldier’s bastard, an interim priest with the soul of a poet. His name Joseph is a Hebrew name. It means he adds. And though he is known to have written many songs in his lifetime, only one has not been lost. He added “Silent Night” to our Christmases. And he also adds to our lives the knowing that most of what we too shall do and be will be forgotten. But in each of our lifetimes we who also struggle with adversity may rise to some local task with God. And in our Father’s eyes it is a great thing to do a little thing well.

The Reverend Stephen Crotts is pastor of Village Presbyterian Church in Charlotte Court House, VA. He is also the director of the Carolina Study Center, Inc., a campus ministry, located in Chapel Hill, NC. Pastor Crotts may be reached at carolinastudycenter@msn.com.