Patrick Comerford
There is less than a week to go to Christmas Day. 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 the decorations in the window of Peggy’s Sweet Shop at 75 High Street in Stony Stratford.
My choice of a carol or hymn today is ‘Christmas Lullaby’ by John Rutter, one of the carols or hymns being sung by the choir at the Carol Service in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, tomorrow afternoon (4 pm, Sunday 21 December 2025).
Rutter wrote both ‘Christmas Lullaby’ (1989) and ‘Star Carol’ (1972) for the Bach Choir and its then conductor, Sir David Willcocks, for performance at the choir’s popular Christmas concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, London.
These events had been part of Rutter’s life since his childhood, when he attended as a member of the audience. He later became involved in making last-minute musical arrangements backstage. He composed ‘Christmas Lullaby’ as part of a commission from the Bach Choir in 1989 for the 70th birthday of their conductor Sir David Willcocks.
Clear in the darkness a light shines in Bethlehem:
Angels are singing, their sound fills the air.
Wise men have journeyed to greet their Messiah;
But only a mother and baby lie there.
‘Ave Maria, ave Maria’:
Hear the soft lullaby the angel hosts sing.
‘Ave Maria, ave Maria,
Maiden, and mother of Jesus our King’.
Where are his courtiers, and who are his people?
Why does he bear neither sceptre nor crown?
Shepherds his courtiers, the poor for his people,
with peace as his sceptre and love for his crown.
What though your treasures are not gold or incense?
Lay them before him with hearts full of love.
Praise to the Christ child, and praise to his mother
who bore us a Saviour by grace from above.
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