Dec 5, 2013
One of the nicest features of Advent and Christmas is that the unique carols of these seasons are a wonderful aid to meditation. You can be on your morning commute or out for a jog or pulling a pie out of the oven and, with music on in the background, you find yourself singing along and suddenly you’re swept into a moment of grace by the combination of profound lyric and gorgeous melody.
I’m not sure why it is, but there is something about folk melody – by which I mean the melodies each culture passes on along with its legends and traditional foods as opposed to the 1960s musical movement—that is particularly beautiful and moving, and most Advent and Christmas songs are set to these old tunes.
My mom trained to sing professionally and has a lovely clear-as-a-bell soprano. She used to give an annual holiday concert at the church I grew up in and spend literally the whole year gathering the most glorious (or sometimes humorous) carols from all over the globe. So us kids had the benefit of a wide repertoire of Christmas music which was fun – because music is fun—and a blessing because the religious imagery and melodies from every land are so rich.
When I converted to Catholicism, I began to have a similar interest in Advent carols and to “collect” them as an aid to entering into the Church’s joyful waiting. I try to learn a new one each Advent season. Here are some favorites, just in case you would like to branch out beyond O Come, O Come Emmanuel….which is wonderful, but I get tired of it when we have to hear it all Advent long. (There, I said it.) Besides, since that song is just the "O" antiphons of the December 17-23 liturgy put to music, it's nice, liturgically speaking, to save it for late in Advent.