Patrick Comerford
Advent began last Sunday with Advent Sunday (30 November 2025), and tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Advent (7 December 2025). The countdown to Christmas is well and truly under way. At noon each day in Advent this year, I am offering one image as part of my ‘Advent Calendar’ for 2025, and one Advent or Christmas carol, hymn or song.
My choice of a hymn, carol or song today is ‘Hark! a herald voice is calling’, which we sang as the recessional hymn in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, last Sunday (Advent I, 30 November 2025).
On this day (6 December), the Church traditionally remembers Saint Nicholas of Myra, who played a key role in formulating the agreements at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, leading to the Nicene Creed, whose 1700th anniversary we have been celebrating this year. But he is also the real, historical figure we remember today as Santa Claus.
For all who are children – and all of us who are children at heart – waiting for Santa’s visit is still a joyful anticipation. His free gifts and presents are tokens of the free giving and gifts of God in the present and presence of Christ at the incarnation, which we are preparing in Advent to welcome. This hymn, ‘Hark! a herald voice is calling’ is a reminder that we are all children at heart, ‘children of the day’.
This hymn is a translation of a fifth century Ambrosian hymn, Vox clara ecce intonate by Edward Caswall. The original words are probably an allusion to Saint John the Baptist, who said of himself: ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord”.’ (John 1: 23).
The priest and hymnwriter Edward Caswall (1814-1878) was born at Yateley, Hampshire, the son of the Revd RC Caswall, sometime Vicar of Yateley, Hampshire. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and was ordained deacon (1838) and priest (1839) in the Church of England.
He was the curate of Saint Lawrence, Stratford-sub-Castle, near Salisbury, in 1840-1847. After visiting Ireland with his wife Louisa and his brother Tom in 1846, he resigned his curacy and was received into the Roman Catholic Church in Rome by Cardinal Januarius Acton in January 1847, a decision that estranged Caswall from some of his family.
His wife Louisa, who had also become a Roman Catholic, died of cholera on 14 September 1849 while they were staying at Torquay. The following year, Caswall joined the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri under John Henry Newman, and he was ordained priest in 1852. He died at the Birmingham Oratory, Edgbaston, on 2 January 1878.
The tune ‘Merton’ is by William Henry Monk (1823-1889), who also write the tunes for ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.
Hark! a herald voice is calling:
‘Christ is nigh,’ it seems to say;
‘Cast away the dreams of darkness,
O ye children of the day!’
Startled at the solemn warning,
Let the earth-bound soul arise;
Christ, her Sun, all sloth dispelling,
Shines upon the morning skies.
Lo! the Lamb, so long expected,
Comes with pardon down from heaven;
Let us haste, with tears of sorrow,
One and all to be forgiven;
So when next he comes with glory,
Wrapping all the earth in fear,
May he then as our defender
Of the clouds of heaven appear.
Honour, glory, virtue, merit,
To the Father and the Son,
With the co-eternal Spirit,
While unending ages run. Amen.
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