Sadly the young assistant pastor strolled through the snow-covered village of Oberndorf, Austria. In a few days it would be Christmas Eve, but Josef Mohr knew there would be no music in his church to herald the great event.
Pausing, Reverend Mohr gazed at the scattered lights in the village. The sight of this peaceful town, wrapped in a blanket of snow, stirred his imagination. Surely it was on such a clear and quiet night as this that the hosts of angels sang out the glorious news that the Saviour had been born.
The young cleric sighed heavily as he thought, "If only we here in Oberndorf could celebrate the birth of Jesus with glorious music like the shepherds heard on that wonderful night!"
Standing there, his mind filled with visions of the first Christmas, Josef Mohr suddenly became aware that the disappointment was fading from his heart; in its place surged a great joy. Vividly, he saw the manger, carved from a mountain side; he saw Mary and Joseph and the Child; he saw the strangers who had been attracted by the light of the great star. The image seemed to shape itself into the words of a poem he had written in 1816 when he was assigned to a pilgrim church in the small Alpine village of Mariapfarr, Austria.
The next day he showed the poem to Franz Gruber, the church organist, who said, "These words should be sung at Christmas, but what could we use for accompaniment? Your guitar?"
The curate replied, "Like Mary and Joseph in the stable, we must be content with what God provides for us."
Franz Gruber studied the poem, then softly strummed the melody that came to him. Next he put the words to the melody and sang them. When he finished, his soul was ablaze with its beauty. Mr. Gruber's beautiful music added the final touch to the poem Mohr had written two years earlier.
On Christmas Eve, 1818, in a small Austrian village, the Oberndorf choir, accompanied only by a guitar, sang for the first time the immortal hymn that begins, "Silent Night.... Holy Night."
