In diepste nacht = In Deepest Night, 1967 - 1995

The 1967 Amsterdam Christmas Night Liturgy was celebrated in an average church for about 1,500 people, combining the assemblies and choirs of the Dominicus and Student Churches. Huub Oosterhuis led the ritual, Bernard Huijbers the music. This Liturgy has been scripted in Prayers, Poems and Songs (Herder & Herder, Sheed & Ward, 1971/1971). ften favored as an Epiphany carol, In Deepest Night) was the intermezzo song between the Liturgy of the Word and the Table. This weekly feature follows the song of reflection on the Scriptures. In both Word and Table, all members of the assembly have played equal roles in these events. This liturgy was a masterpiece of integration, where all elements were musically and/or textually interconnected. This served Huijbers’ three-fold intent: of integrating text and music, of bonding the assembly in song, and embodying text, music and assembly into the rites being celebrated. The gathering song, This Is The Day [JM 157] used Psalm 118 for the refrains, with fragments of the night’s Scriptures as its verses. The penitential Kyrie was sung over the last refrain, and at the end of the Christmas Gospel [JM 546], the Gloria song of the Angels [JM 159] was sung by the assembly to the same melody of the gathering, except no longer in 2/4 but 6/8 time. After the readings, selected Verses from Psalm 118 - My Help And My Stronghold [JM 158] connected textually with the gathering refrains. A woodwind obligato descant is played, from the 1545/1551 Geneva Psalter. After the homily, this song was sung, its melody from this same Geneva metrical psalm. The piece brought the Liturgy of the Word to an end. After the Intermezzo, the song From Far Away Your Coming [JM 161] resonated with the assembly, in Huijbers’ arrangement of Michael Praetorius’ 1609 Es Ist Ein Reis. The Tableprayer, the 1st Century Eucharistic Acclamations From The Didache [JM 340], was sung by all in the assembly, a trilogue dynamic between leader, choir, and people. Huijbers choice of melos was from the Easter Vigil setting of the Exultet. The Closing Song, Now We Bid You Welcome [JM 162] was emblematic for the Dutch people, having been in their folklore since around the 11th Century. Huijbers shaped these to new texts by Oosterhuis. He looked to the open-form acclamatory songs of the Early Church, he delved into his own background of Gregorian Chant, he made arrangements from the Protestant (Calvinist) tradition of metrical song, and he embraced his own heritage of folksong All of these he brought together to introduce the new Oosterhuis texts to the people, and the people to one another. But what of the text? What might Oosterhuis be saying which doesn't meet the eye? How might this song differ from anything we may normally sing at Christmas? The first verse opens with a low-key statement, In deepest night it comes to our ears... but then begins an unfolding of the messianic prophecies, drawing attention to the Scriptures and not to pious stories. Nor should we turn to catechisms for definitions about the indefinable. Rather, we must trust intuition. Open your hearts, believe your senses, entrust yourselves to what you see. God's promised word, so high in glory, now robed in our humanity. This is so complex yet how simple! Deeper meanings are to be found in the second verse. To us no other sign is given, no light in darkness shining through, only this man as our companion, a God who is our brother too. When referring to God as our brother too, Oosterhuis resorts to his poetic, second, language, to say that meaning is to be found not in the words but behind or beyond them. By reciprocation, a God who is our brother must mean that our brother (fellow human) is our God. His christology is based on Incarnation. Once the Deity took on human form and rose from the tomb, then that same God, The Only One, is embodied in every human we encounter. Jesus is now entangled within the human condition, inseparable from our own doubts, fears, hopes, pleasures, difficulties and surprises. Verse 3 is couched in the rich imagery of the Scriptures, the vision of the coming bridegroom equated with the new light, the new dawn of peace. Who binds all people to each other, from mouth to mouth, love resonant. This statement implies that the love Jesus brings leaps from mouth to mouth, yet not only as words but in the actual expression of what the words mean, and that is in kissing. -- Tony Barr