Fascinating! I know The Huron Carol is another where the common English lyrics are completely unrelated to the original Wendant/Huron lyrics written by St Jean de Brébeuf and though there are more accurate English translations, they're almost never sung. I'm not surprised that there are many different translations here too. I've seen Silent Night sung in many different languages. I wonder what all the different translations amount too...

Will give the article a deep dive.

Cantique de Noël is another victim of an English-language "inspired by" versification.

Leave the English, take the French. Always.

Something I really liked about Don's article on Silent Night are the two illustrations of typical Catholic music programs (in this case for Christmas) that were used in the days prior to Vatican II. One of the illustrations is even from a Cathedral! Silent Night is included, needless to say, in both programs. However, hymns like Joy to the World, The First Nowell, and, of course, Away in a Manger are not included. They were deemed as too secular and were not included in any Catholic hymnals prior to 1965 or so.

The types of hymns included in both illustrations are very similar to what we used in my parish in the late 50s and early 60s; e.g., Jesus, Teach Me How to Pray; The Christ Child in the Sacred Host; Birthday of a King, etc. I think most English-speaking American parishes used hymns such as these. Turton's SS. Cordis Jesu, used at St. Mary's Church, in Erie, PA, is a splendid Mass that was also widely used year-round.

In the Massachusetts city in which I grew up, there were 27 Catholic churches in the early 60s (most of these were ethnic). About a week before Christmas, the city's chief newspaper would publish the Christmas music program of every church in the city--Catholic and Protestant. It was a couple of pages long! I think I'll go to the public library in that city and try to find some of these on microfilm for a pleasant history lesson.

I'm somewhat flabbergasted by there being a service that started at 4:30AM.

Here are three arrangements of Silent Night in Latin, Silet Nox, arranged by Gregory Hugle, OSB: Mixed, TT BB, Children's Voices.

The First Nowell appears in the Westminster Hymnal (1940), attribution : Old English Traditional

also, early Masses outside of the usual times permitted by ecclesiastical law were somewhat more tolerated than late ones before the permission for evening Masses of the same day came under Pius XII. The rule was from dawn (or an hour before), to the end of the noon hour (whether civil or astronomical, whatever was more favorable), but for a good-enough reason (I can’t remember if it’s simply a just cause) you could certainly say private Masses earlier (private, in the sense of a priest’s daily Mass with a server) especially when otherwise a priest would be inconvenienced later in the day, and there is a fairly wide berth given for holy days of obligation including Sunday for morning Masses beginning before sunrise. The knock-on effect is that now we eliminated those and only have evening Masses, but afternoon-to-night and night-shift workers are either going to their shifts or are at their shifts. People who could conceivably attend an early morning Mass might not be able to attend such a Mass either (both on Saturday and Sunday: service-industry folks who do clopenings—closing one night to open the next—are not uncommon). Or if they can attend, they’re in miserable shape, more so than hauling it after a late Saturday night. And the other knock-on effect is the elimination of most evening devotions and of Vespers. :(

I’d have to look up the evening Mass question (I believe that the permissions were for the 2nd war because the 1917 Code immediately revoked any previous permissions), but for fasting they removed indults including historical ones but Pius XII loosened the Eucharistic fast for the evening, cut out most vigils, and so on, and didn’t finish the job. So the 1965/6 documents did, then the 1983 Code finished the job. :(