Anglicanless Christmas

Anglicans have written some of the greatest Christmas hymns, the ones Catholics sing at Christmas Masses, like “Hark, the herald angels sing” (John Wesley), “O little town of Bethlehem” (Philips Brooks), “In the bleak midwinter” (Christina Rossetti), and “Good Christian Men, rejoice” (John Mason Neale, who also wrote “O come, O come, Emmanuel” for Advent and “Good King Wenseslas” for Boxing Day).

“What would Christmas be like without Anglicans?” asks an Episcopal minster, Timothy Matkin, in A Christmas Without Anglicans?. I take his point. But the better question would be: “What would Christmas be like if those people had been Catholics?” Think how much deeper would have been their hymns had they been able to draw upon and express the fullness of the Catholic faith.