Fort Wayne's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception has a Midnight Mass attended by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. It is an EVENT. Several of the Lutheran churches also have midnight services on Christmas Eve, but not all. Some of them begin at 11 p.m. and end at midnight rather than beginning then.
Fort Wayne is the "seat" of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, and Bishop John D'Arcy conducts the service on Christmas Eve at the cathedral.
Both the Catholic and Lutheran communities in Fort Wayne, Allen and surrounding counties have deep roots in Germany.
Our Catholic parish continues to celebrate a Chistmas midnight mass each
year. We are a very old German parish in a very old German area of a very
old German city (Quincy Illinois).
Beyond the obvious highly spiritual aspect of the midnight Mass is a solo
after communion by a parishioner who is a member of our choir. Her name is
Mary Ann Middendorf (nee Amen). Her solo is "Silent Night" in German...just
the way her Great-great-great grandfather, Franz Gruber, helped compose it
(along with the young parish priest, Fr, Joseph Mohr)in 1818! It is truly
inspirational to hear her solo as she reaches back some 190 years to
reconnect with her g-g-g-gr grandafther and to help all of the congregation
reach back some 2000+ years to the birth of the Christchild, Jesus.
That is really cool that a member of your congregation is related to him.
Like I said, I taught my children the German words to it when they were
young, telling them, "that's the way it was written, that's the way we
should sing it ".
At least that kind of reasoning worked with them back then
The words to Stille Nacht actually come more naturally to me in German than
they do in English, because it just how I have always sung it, since about
the age of 5.
I think she is blessed with a very cool genealogy. That has to be the most
popular and beautiful Christmas hymn I would think.
All of my German relatives lived in Mt. Prospect, I was the 5th or 6th
generation to grow up there. Friedrich Busse is listed as the founder of Mt
Prospect, ILL. My grandmother's mother (Marie Busse) was the granddaughter
of Friedrich, and my grandmother's father was William Kirchhoff. 2 of my
grandmother's sisters married 2 Freise brothers, who were from Schaumberg,
ILL, they had the farm where Motorola now is, if anyone knows the area.
susan voth
(stier, busse, kirchhoff, behr, behrens)
Midnight masses seem to be rare nowadays. When I was a child I attended
a mass 5 o'clock on christmas morning, but usually the mass is already
on Holy eve in the early evening at 6 or 7 and then people walk home to
celebrate christmas. My husband and I will sing in the church choir this
evening and yes, I always liked this mass and the christmas chorals.
"Stille Nacht" is usually the last one before leaving. We will also sing
another choral composed by the team Gruber/Mohr in latin language
"Transeamus" which I like very much. In another year we sang "Joy to the
world" by Händel - one of my favourite christmas songs - and this year
we will too sing an English choral "Glorious kingdom" although the mass
of course is in German language - but christmas is international!
Best wishes for the 3rd Advent sunday, Rotraud
