The Twelve Days of Christmas Carols: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

On December 28, 2007, my wife and I were married in a lovely Church with a cantor singing as gloriously as possible the words of Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. The original text, so says the hymnal, is from the 4th Century Liturgy of St. James. The song, done well, sends chills down my spine. As you read it, try to keep your eyes focused in the depth of significance in the Incarnation: Emmanuel, God-with-us, the ineffable, immutable, unfathomable God comes to us, simple, fleeting, predictable men.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence is a Christmas hymn because it describes the Savior's coming, but it was for us also a fitting wedding hymn. The central aspect of marriage is two-fold: the unity of the spouses and the production of children. Our nation's motto, e pluribus unum, is true and good, but the opposite is also true: out of union, diversity. The unity of Christian spouses is the source of the diversity they bring into the world in the form of children. Christ Jesus, God yet born of Mary, Light of Light Himself descended to take on human vesture, body and blood. He became one with Creation, one with His people, one with Israel, one with the Church, and from this unity comes the whole diversity of Christian souls, one in the Lord yet many in number, "a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue" (Rev 7:9). Through the marriage between Christ and His Bride, the Church, the Gospel is spread as seed (cf. Matt 13) and takes shape in the womb of the Church, formative Christian culture and catechesis, where the infant may hear and grow accustomed to the heartbeat of Mater Ecclesia, the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Mass, and take his flesh from Christ, who took our flesh.

His Servant and Yours,

Micah