The Christmas Eve midnight mass in this church will start at 11.45 pm. The service will be in English, Hindi and Tamil. The church, which took eight years to build and was opened in 1935, was constructed to symbolize the transfer of the capital of British India to New Delhi. It is shaped like a birthday cake with a candle on top. It is also known as Viceroy’s Church, for Lord Irwin (Viceroy from 1926 to 1931) had gifted an organ and a silver cross to it after he survived a near fatal accident in 1929.
Delhi's Christmas Eve midnight masses mirror the cosmopolitan character of the Capital. Where else in the world are services held in five languages — English, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and Malayalam — and carols sung in Korean? And where do people cutting across religious lines, as in the City Minstrels Choir, join the ritual of carol singing to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? Such is the magic of the festive season that the spirit takes hold of people from all faiths and walks of life. “Christmas is the time when people mend relationships and turn over a new leaf,” says Father Maria Susai, the parish priest at the Sacred Heart Cathedral, which is also the headquarter of the Delhi Archdiocese. His sentiments are echoed by Father Arul Anthony of St Alphonsa’s Church, Vasant Kunj, which celebrates Christmas by distributing cakes and coffee to all.
Famous Jingles:
Silent Night, Holy Night
According to the song’s history provided by Austria’s Silent Night Society, Salzburg-born priest Joseph Mohr composed the best-known Christmas carol in 1815 (a fact confirmed by the discovery of the original script in 1995) and first performed it on Christmas Eve 1818. It has been translated into more than 44 languages.
We Three Kings of Orient
This Christmas carol was written in 1857 by the Reverend John Henry Hopkins. He wrote both the words and music for it as part of a Christmas pageant organised by the General Theological Seminary in New York City. It first appeared in his collection, Carols, Hymns and Songs, in 1863.
Joy to the World
The lyrics date back to 1719 and are ascribed to Isaac Watts, the powerful and prolific English hymn writer. This popular carol is based on The Bible’s Psalm 98, which begins with the words, ‘Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things’. The song is a celebration of the wonderful ways in which God has protected and guided his people.
Hark The Herald Angels Sing
This carol was written by Charles Wesley, the brother of Methodist church founder John Wesley, in 1739. It was sung to a different tune in its early days. It tells the story of Jesus’s birth, when shepherds heard and saw angels singing about the new-born king to be found in a manger in Bethlehem.
Jingle Bells
One of the 25 most recorded songs in history, Jingle Bells was written by James Lord Pierpont in 1857, and was originally titled ‘One Horse Open Sleigh’. It was the first song to be sung in space — in 1965, by the American astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford aboard the Gemini-6 spacecraft — to the accompaniment of a harmonica and sleigh bells, which are now preserved in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Carol singing is integral to the celebratory package at most churches but the fact to celebrate is that this activity is not limited to church groups alone. “Delhi has a number of independent groups, whose members are from different faiths, who go from house to house to spread the message of peace and universal brotherhood,” says Father Dominic Emmanuel, the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese spokesperson. This is also the time of the year when the leading luminaries of the city’s churches keep drumming up the message of charity and prayer. “Prayers are very important, for this is the time to remember the under-privileged,” says Pastor Mohit Heinz Hitter of St Stephen’s Church, Fatehpuri. In sync with this philosophy, groups from the parish go to hospitals, old-age homes and orphanages to bring Christmas cheer to those who need an extra dose of it. For the church, this is the time to spread the festive warmth without getting tied up in denominational knots.
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