The fascinating stories of the "Apollo 8 Christmas Eve Message" and the Christmas song, "O Holy Night," the accompanying music to this video.
“Say something appropriate,” Apollo 8
“Say something appropriate.” – NASA instructed the crew of Apollo 8 to come up with a Christmas Eve broadcast message during their lunar orbit.
There were several suggestions including reciting some verses from “The Night Before Christmas” to singing “Jingle Bells.” Nothing seemed to be appropriate.
Frank Borman asked a friend, Si Bourgin, for suggestion. Bourgin, in turn had a conversation with a reporter named Joe Laitin, in turn mentioned it to his wife who suggested to read from the book of Genesis.
The 3 astronauts read Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 through 10 verbatim, using the King James Version text. Anders read verses 1–4, Lovell read verses 5–8, and Borman read verses 9–10, concluding the transmission.
William Anders opined that the first 10 verses of the Old Testament was the foundation of many of the world’s religions that not just Christians and Jews would understand, but that all people, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist would react to in a deep and moving way to help them remember this event of exploration.
On the evening of December 24, 1968, the astronauts: Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders did a live television broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and Moon seen from Apollo 8. Lovell said, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth." They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis.
TV newsman Walter Cronkite remarked: “You know, I’m afraid that my first reaction was, ‘Oh, this a little too much, this a little too dramatic.’ Even, I might even have thought ‘this is a little corny.’ But by the time Borman had finished reading that excerpt from the Bible, I admit that I had tears in my eyes. It was really impressive and just the right thing to do at the moment. Just the right thing.”
The Apollo 8 broadcasts won an Emmy, the highest honor given by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/moon-telecasts-apollo-8/ “O Holy Night”: Its Fascinating Story
In 1847, a priest asked Placide Cappeau, a French poet, to write a poem for Christmas mass. In a stagecoach on his way to Paris, he wrote, “Minuit, Chretien’s” (Midnight, Christians) and later released under the name, “Cantique de Noel.” Moved by his work, he asked a musician named, Adolphe Charles Adams, a man of Jewish ancestry, to write the music. He finished his work which pleased both the poet and priest. The song was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
Initially, “Cantique de Noel” was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France and the song quickly found its way into various Catholic Christmas services. But when Placide Cappeau walked away from the church and became a part of the socialist movement and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the song – which had quickly grown to be one of the most beloved Christmas songs in France – was suddenly and uniformly denounced by the church. But the French people continued to sing it, and a decade later (1855) a reclusive American writer, John Sullivan Dwight, translated it in English and brought it to a whole new audience halfway around the world. Dwight strongly identified with the lines of the third verse: “Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease.” “O Holy Night” quickly found favor in America especially in the North during the Civil War.
This incredible work – requested by a forgotten priest, written by a poet who would later split from the church, given soaring music by a Jewish composer, and brought to Americans to serve as much as a tool to spotlight the sinful nature of slavery as tell the story of the birth of a Savior – has become one of the most beautiful, inspired pieces of music ever created.
https://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/movies/the-nativity-story/the-amazing-story-of-o-holy-night.aspxAmen!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!