O Come, All Ye Faithful

Heather Allington

Heather writes for Sunday Song Book on behalf of the The Salvation Army Oshawa. As a lifelong member of the Army, she has loved these familiar - and some less familiar - songs for many years, and enjoys researching and writing about their origins. She is a wife, mother, grandmother and retired elementary school teacher who likes trying her hand at watercolour painting and poetry writing.

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
Come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels!
O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.

Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation;
Sing, all ye citizens of Heaven above!
Glory to God in the highest!
O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning;
Jesus to Thee be glory given.
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.
O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.

Although the origin of this carol is a little obscure, it is believed by historians to have been written by an Englishman, John Francis Wade, who wrote both the lyrics and the music in 1743. Since Wade was a Roman Catholic, he wrote the words in Latin, the only language used in his church at that time. We sometimes still hear the Latin words sung: “Adeste, fideles, laeti, triumphantes,” and Adeste, Fideles is the title given to the tune in the Salvation Army Tune Book.

John Francis Wade was born and raised in Lancashire, England, but during his lifetime Roman Catholics were persecuted in England, so he, along with others, escaped to France, where he lived in an English-speaking community. There he developed his skill of carefully copying musical scores. He published Adeste, Fideles in 1751 in a collection of his hymns entitled Cantus Divers . When the Jacobite rebellions were over, English Catholics began returning to England, bringing this carol with them. In 1839 it was finally translated into English by Reverend Frederick Oakeley, but still not published as such until 1852. Interestingly, after 19 years as an Anglican priest, Frederick Oakeley became a Roman Catholic and was re-ordained. He eventually became Canon of Westminster Cathedral. It was said that he lived an exemplary life of serving the poor.

Whenever we joyfully sing O Come, All Ye Faithful perhaps we can imagine how it would have sounded when sung in Latin, by English people, in a little French village more than 250 years ago.