Nothing wrong with it. My GIA hymnal put it in the Epiphany section, but it is still a perfectly good carol for the rest of Christmas. Our Midnight Mass recessional is always "Joy to the World."

"Joy to the World," the Handel version, I inherited along with "O Come All Ye Faithful" for Midnight Mass and Christmas day. Those two have been a tradition before my time there and I am fine with them. They get limited use so are not around long enough in the liturgical year to make much difference.

OTOH, another parish in town that will remain nameless, did the Three Dog Night version of "Joy..." as a recessional at their Christmas Eve "contemporary" mass.

I personally keep Hark! on Christmas and sing Nowell on Epiphany, because “Then entered in those wise men three / full reverently upon the knee / and offered there in his presence / their gold and myrrh and frankincense.”

Also, our (NO) last hymn on Christmas is always sung at the end of Communion, before the Postcommunion. Some Sunday PIPs are wont to leave as soon as the procession gets out of their way – how much more the CEOs, with a full parking lot, and food in the oven?

I find it tremendously depressing to try to sing a hymn while people are pushing past me to get out of the church, and others are starting to shout season's greetings, and the next person actually singing is five pews away and to the left. Just go out with an organ postlude.

Maybe it isn't the recessional that you need to change but what you do afterwards. When I sang in St. Mary's choir, we would sing a recessional that the congregation could sing. "Joy to the World", "Hark the Herald Angles Sing", etc. We might do one or two verses of the hymn. Then we would switch and sing what had become traditional for our parish, "The Song That Would Never Cease". It's my suggestion.

I think TFN is useful for times when the congregation is not normally using hymnals. It does seem more of an Epiphanytide text than for Christmas itself.

TFN ... doesn't that verse end, "That hath made heav'n and earth of naught, And with His blood mankind hath bought" - ?

Sounds perfect for recessional for the last Epiphany Sunday, with Septuagesima right on the horizon. Think I'll use it. thanks!

cesarfranck
my favorite is It Came Upon A(the) Midnight Clear
even though it says, "peace on the earth, good will to men"
the best verses come so late that probably few people ever sing them

3. But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring; –
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

5. For lo! the days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold,
When, with the ever circling years
Shall come the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth,
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song,
Which now the angels sing.

Liam, Very valid point and one of many reasons that I never use it on Christmas Eve.

In some cases, yes.
In some cases, no.
It all depends on the theological content, musical worth, and literary quality of a given specimen.

Luther himself is a case in point -
He is responsible for numerous hymns that are beautiful, are quite sound, and are good verse.
He is also responsible for much that a Catholic could not so much as glance at without shuddering.

This is rather closely allied to the topics about 'Protestant' hymnody that we have given much attention to in the past. It is the content and its quality, not the provenance, that is the determining factor. Most of us shouldn't want never again to sing Schmuche dich just because it was penned by a Lutheran. It is an orthodox theological and eucharistic gem that is chock full of mystical imagery. (Etc., etc..) Whatever expresses Truth is ipso facto Catholic.