December 25 

O Come, All Ye Faithful 

TEXT AND TUNE: John Francis Wade

b. Circa 1710³⁵

d. August 16, 1786, Douai, France

Englishman John Francis Wade was a Catholic layman at a time when persecution drove many Catholics to flee England for France. To support himself in his new country, Wade became a music copyist, known for his exquisitely beautiful handwritten copies of plainsongs and sacred music. In the process, he discovered a Latin poem that began “Adeste Fidelis, Laeti triumphantes.” From that, he composed the carol we know as “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Formerly, it was believed that he merely found and translated the carol, but more recently, musicologists determined that he indeed wrote the Latin carol text.

The carol was translated from the Latin into English almost one hundred years later by Reverend Frederick Oakley for his congregation at the Margaret Street Chapel in London. His first attempt was “Ye Faithful, Approach Ye.” Several years later, and after he had converted to Catholicism increasing his skill in Latin, he tried again, writing the English words we know and which are now translated into over 150 languages.

ADESTE FIDELES (Adeste, “come”; Fideles, “faithful ones”) was written by Wade for his own text and is named for the first two words. It first appeared in 1751 in his Cantus Diversi, music compiled for use in the Roman Catholic Church. Almost one hundred years later in 1845, Samuel Webbe, organist at the Portuguese embassy in London, arranged it in its present form. It is therefore sometimes called PORTUGUESE HYMN. It is also the tune used in Great Britain for the text “How Firm a Foundation.”

As you sing this hymn … if you are following our calendar, it is Christmas Day. We sing in the present tense of Jesus, “born this happy morning, now in flesh appearing.” And you are being called to worship—called with all the “faithful” to come on this Christmas Day and adore Him. The faithful are those who believe and affirm what this carol declares. The second stanza reflects the Nicene Creed, a profession of faith established by a council of church leaders at Nicaea, Turkey, in AD 325. As you sing, you are declaring, “This is what I believe.” I believe He was true God and eternally existed, but began life on earth as planted by God in the womb of Virgin Mary. He was Son of the eternal Father, begotten and not created. These essential truths are beyond our comprehension but fundamental to our accepting the redemption plan of God.

Within the refrain’s threefold invitation to “adore Him,” we understand the essence of worship is not physical actions or outward homage, but it must be “in spirit and in truth.” We adore what we most highly value. He must be, in the words of Sheldon Vanauken, “overwhelmingly first.”³⁶ We adore whatever we place first in our lives, and God is worthy to be first. With all the distractions of Christmas, it is easy to sing about adoration without actually doing it. Take time today to quietly adore and once again express your faithfulness. Join the choirs of angels who sing, “Glory to God in the highest,” and in so doing, make this your highest Christmas gift to Jesus.