Patrick Comerford
We are in the last week of Advent, and Christmas Day is next Thursday. At noon each day this Advent, I am offering an image as part of my own ‘Advent Calendar’ for 2025, and an Advent or Christmas carol, hymn or song.
My image for my Advent Calendar today is of the Christmas lights in the churchyard at Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford.
My choice of a carol or hymn today is ‘O come all ye faithful’, our closing carol at the Carol Service in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this afternoon (4 pm, Sunday 21 December 2025).
This is one of the best-loved Christmas carols, and is sometimes known by its Latin name (Adeste Fideles), and this probably explains why it is often described as a mediaeval hymn. But while, the original author is unknown, the writer who made it popular in English was Frederick Oakeley (1802-1880), a priest in the Church of England, a canon of Lichfield Cathedral and an Oxford don for many years before following John Henry Newman into the Roman Catholic Church and becoming a canon of Westminster Cathedral.
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him
Born the King of Angels:
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.
God of God,
Light of Light,
Lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb;
Very God,
Begotten, not created:
Refrain
Sing, choirs of angels,
Sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of heav’n above;
Glory to God
In the highest:
Refrain
Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
Born that happy morning,
Jesu, to thee be glory giv’n!
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh appearing:
Refrain
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