Joseph Sabino Mistick: O Holy Night

It turned out to be my last chance to shine at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass with the boys’ choir of St. Robert Bellarmine Church in East McKeesport. By the next year, my voice would be changed, one more sign that I was moving along in life, aging out of things.

St. Robert’s was established during the post-World War II GI Bill housing crush, when ethnic factory and mill worker families were able to move a few miles from the smoke and noise in the industrial valleys. The Roman Catholic population grew so fast in and around East McKeesport, a hilltop town, that a new church could not be built in time, so St. Robert’s opened in a former movie theater.

It sometimes felt to those of us in the boys’ choir that we were not devout enough to be altar boys. But in the months running up to Christmas, we religiously attended weekly practice. Most of us joined the choir because we just liked to sing, something that I still do around the house to mixed reviews.

I almost missed that big night 60 years ago. After our last school day before the Christmas break, I had surgery on my left foot, but it went well enough that come Christmas Eve my dad could carry me through the snow and slush into the church and up the narrow stairway to the loft. We sang all the great Christmas hymns that night, many of them still in Latin.

But the highlight was the recessional, “O Holy Night,” which is based on an 1843 French poem by Placide Cappeau about the birth of Jesus Christ and world redemption. It was translated into English in 1885 by American abolitionist minister John Sullivan Dwight. It quickly became popular in the Northern states because of the third verse, which is not often sung or remembered, but should be:

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.

At St. Robert’s that night, after the final blessing, I hopped on my good foot to the edge of the balcony, where the projection booth used to be, as the congregation slowly headed up the sloped floor to the lobby, where the popcorn used to be. Looking down at hundreds of upturned faces, I held onto the railing while holding my bandaged bad foot off the floor and sang “O Holy Night” with all the conviction I had. The missed notes were hardly noticeable.

I think I sort of nailed it. At least that’s how I remember it. And I remember these words from the first verse clearly, words that I have sung throughout the season ever since, words that we all need from time to time, but especially now:

Long lay the world in sin and e’er pining

‘Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.