"What Child Is This" Lyrics

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Bobby_Jim

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Has anyone noticed that a lot of Catholic parishes no longer sing all of the lyrics to “What Child Is This”?

Specifically, the second part of the first verse: “This, this, is Christ the King…” is now comonly used as a refrain for each verse.

Gone is the second half of verse 2:

*Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, *
*The cross be borne for me, for you. *
*Hail, hail the Word made flesh, *
*T**he Babe, the Son of Mary. *

and verse 3:

Raise, raise a song on high,
The Virgin sings her lullaby.
Joy, joy for Christ is born,
*The Babe, the Son of Mary. *

I always thought the “Nails, spear…” part was so moving - draws the connection between Christmas and Easter - the wood of the manger and the wood of the cross. It makes me cry whenever I hear it. Kind of like the verse about Myrrh in “We Three Kings”. At least we still get to sing that sometimes…
 
Wow, you’re right! I had a copy of the hymnal my church used to use (they recently got new missaletes, and let parishioners keep the old ones). It’s the OCP “Heritage” missal, and the second halves of the second and third verses are missing, replaced by the second half of the first verse set as a refrain. I’m not sure if the new missals have this same version, as they are also by OCP.

The version you mention is unfamiliar to me, but seems richer and more meaningful - a shame we don’t use it.😦
 
My parish still sings the original. I have never heard of the “modern” version.
 
I had my choir sing the full versions of What Child Is This. I lifted the text from the Adoremus Hymnal. The Liturgy of the Hours also has the full refrains.
 
You know, I hadn’t thought of this; but at the Mass I attended yesterday they did just what is here noted by using the first ending as a refrain. Something seemed wrong to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I guess babies are easier to handle than nails and spears.
 
lak611 said:
My parish still sings the original. I have never heard of the “modern” version.
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it is not a modern version, the lyrics are quite old and were used as catechesis, as many old hymns based on folk melodies were. We only sing a few verses because at Mass there is usually only time for a couple of verses.

More puzzling is why popular CDs of Christmas music by religious artists don’t use the full text of hymns like this, We 3 Kings, the Holly and the Ivy and similar “teaching” carols. Some of these may be, like the Spanish language ones we sing, pilgrimage hymns, many verses sung as people moved in processions such as Las Posadas among the Mexicans, processions to the creche, the English before the Reformation had similar processions with multi-verse hymns that described essentially the narrative of the infancy gospels, or salvation history, or the life of Christ. An example for Lent is the Stabat Mater.
 
puzzleannie said:
it is not a modern version, the lyrics are quite old and were used as catechesis, as many old hymns based on folk melodies were. We only sing a few verses because at Mass there is usually only time for a couple of verses.
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Puzzleannie,

It isn’t that we only sing a few verses, it’s that the second verse has been changed in some missals to use the second half of Verse 1 as a refrain.

So there is the same amount of singing (two verses) but the part about the nails and spear piercing Him has been removed and replaced with a repition of “This, This is Christ the King…”
 
As a communion song, using the “This this is Christ the King” refrain is good practice…since we’re going to communion in procession and it speaks of presence.

If you look at the meter of the song however, nothing is preventing anyone from using the “nails, spear” verse as verse 4, or verse 5…

Songs that tie together the entirety of the paschal mystery are very good for Christmastide in my opinion. A writer out of Boston has written a very good song called 'Wood of the Cradle" that does something similar.
 
could you please post the complete texts of these songs?

thanks
 
Califman831 said:
could you please post the complete texts of these songs?

thanks
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What Child is this who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and *** are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh,
Come peasant, king to own Him;
The King of kings salvation brings,
Let loving hearts enthrone Him.
Raise, raise a song on high,
The virgin sings her lullaby.
Joy, joy for Christ is born,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
 
<<Where ox and *** are feeding?>>

Come one! Don’t be such a prude.

“***” is the PRECISE word to use here. They are noble beasts of burdern who on more than one occasion bore the Hope of all ages on their backs.

The word you were thinking of is “arse.”
 
bpbasilphx said:
<<Where ox and *** are feeding?>>

Come one! Don’t be such a prude.

“***” is the PRECISE word to use here. They are noble beasts of burdern who on more than one occasion bore the Hope of all ages on their backs.

The word you were thinking of is “arse.”
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I didn’t do that. That’s CAF’s electronic censor at work. There’s nothing wrong with the term for a donkey that begins with “a”. I copied and pasted the song from the Cyberhymnal, but CAF’s electronic censor deleted the word.
 
Excuse me, but why did you single out this one hymn from all the others that we never sing? I have seldom in all my 60+ years heard a hymn sung in its entirety. The choir director/liturgy committee will always tell you that it is time constrainsts that make the abridging of hymns so common, but it still leaves so much unsaid. Hymns serve the multiple purposes: worship, thanksgiving, praise, petition, rejoicing and TEACHING. When we cut off the last two or three or more stanzas of a hymn we lose that much teaching. Such a shame.

Matthew
 
drafdog said:
Excuse me, but why did you single out this one hymn from all the others that we never sing? I have seldom in all my 60+ years heard a hymn sung in its entirety. The choir director/liturgy committee will always tell you that it is time constrainsts that make the abridging of hymns so common, but it still leaves so much unsaid. Hymns serve the multiple purposes: worship, thanksgiving, praise, petition, rejoicing and TEACHING. When we cut off the last two or three or more stanzas of a hymn we lose that much teaching. Such a shame.

Matthew
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It seems that not all Catholic churches sing the entire song. Mine doesn’t and I surely wish they did.

Kathy
 
Thank you very much for giving the full lyrics to the hymn. That’s one of my favourites, and I couldn’t remember all the words. I’m not Catholic, but I used to sing in a church choir, and I was always disappointed when the words of the hymn were not the same as the hymn I learned. My parents were raised Catholic but left the church before I was born. My father always insisted that we learn the original words to the hymns that we would sing for Christmas. He did butt heads with the choir director a few times over the lyrics used (we sang in choir together - my dad, my brother and I).
 
There is a three-letter reason why this carol has been abridged. It starts with “O.”
 
Just_wondering said:
Thank you very much for giving the full lyrics to the hymn. That’s one of my favourites, and I couldn’t remember all the words. I’m not Catholic, but I used to sing in a church choir, and I was always disappointed when the words of the hymn were not the same as the hymn I learned. My parents were raised Catholic but left the church before I was born. My father always insisted that we learn the original words to the hymns that we would sing for Christmas. He did butt heads with the choir director a few times over the lyrics used (we sang in choir together - my dad, my brother and I).
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You’re welcome! 🙂 I do not see why this hymn would not be sung in its entirety by all Christian faiths.
 
The music was around before the hymn. It was borrowed (plagiarized?). The credit is usually given at the bottom of the page in the hymnal. The music has be ascribed to Henry VIII Plantangenet.

Matthew
 
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