Once in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.
He came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall;
with the poor, and mean, and lowly,
lived on earth our Saviour holy.
And, through all his wondrous childhood,
he would honour and obey,
love and watch the lowly maiden
in whose gentle arms he lay:
Christian children all must be
mild, obedient, good as he.
For he is our childhood's pattern,
day by day like us he grew;
he was little, weak and helpless,
tears and smiles like us he knew.
and he feeleth for our sadness,
and he shareth in our gladness.
And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love;
for that Child who seemed so helpless
is our Lord in heaven above;
and he leads his children on
to the place where he is gone.
Not in that poor lowly stable,
with the oxen standing round,
we shall see him; but in heaven,
set at God's right hand on high;
when like stars his children crowned,
all in white shall wait around.
2 comments:
Once in royal ... Christmas always starts with that solo from King's at 3 p.m. despite so many carols before the feast!
I could not agree more with your comment about so many Christmas carols being sung before the great feast arrives. It is not as if Advent doesn't have any decent hymns!
However, I get even more annoyed when Christmas carols are rarely heard after 25 December. It will be particularly bad this year (or should I say next) with the Epiphany being celebrated on 2 January.
I note that some Anglican parishes maintain a spirit of Christmas for 40 days up to the Feast of Candlemas (2 February) - and I wish more Catholic parishes would take note.
It seems quite barmy that we celebrate Christmas more during Advent than we do during Christmas! We would hardly sing 'Jesus Christ is Risen Today' on Good Friday, so why do we get things so badly wrong at Christmas?
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