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🗓️ 21 December 2023
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Have you ever heard the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"? Have you listened to the lyrics carefully? It's not exactly the blissful naiveté of "Deck the Halls". It's much more real and raw than that.
Today, Fr. Mike is here to remind us that although "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good-will to men," the truth is that "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men."
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0:00.0 | It's a song called I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. I didn't realize until I listened to the |
0:05.1 | casting crowns version on this Christmas CD my mom had given me of like it doesn't kind of stay nice and sweet. |
0:11.6 | It actually gets really dark really quickly. |
0:15.6 | My name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Essentially Presents. |
0:18.1 | Years ago my mom had gotten me a Christmas CD. I think it was like a stocking supper or something like this and it was |
0:23.7 | from a Christian band called Casting Crowns and so I listened to that a bunch I |
0:27.6 | really actually ended up liking it a lot. One of the songs that was on this |
0:31.6 | Christmas album is a song I heard of and I heard the beginning of it but I never ever paid attention to |
0:36.7 | It's a song called I heard the Bells on Christmas Day and yeah, you know it starts out. I heard the bells on Christmas Day |
0:42.4 | The old familiar |
0:43.9 | carols play of wild and sweet, the words repeat, of peace on earth, goodwill to men. |
0:48.0 | Like, oh, nice song. Second verse, kind of similar. Heard the I thought of how as |
0:52.1 | they had come, the bell freeze upon christened them and rolled along the |
0:55.8 | unbroken song peace on earth goodwill to men just nice the third versus third |
1:00.4 | stands I kind of like that just like things are happening. |
1:02.8 | Then from each black a cursed mouth, the cannon thundered in the south. |
1:07.9 | And with the sound, the carols drowned, a peace on earth, goodwill to men. |
1:15.0 | And it gets even even worse. |
1:18.0 | And I realized, what is happening? What is this song all about? |
1:20.0 | Well, it turns out, this song was written in 1863 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. |
1:26.0 | If you know Longfellow, right? |
1:27.3 | He was a poet, literary critic and whatnot. |
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