Gesu Bambino
“Upon a winter night,
Was born the Child, the Christmas Rose,
The King of Love and Light.
The angels sang, the shepherds sang,
The grateful earth rejoiced.” Frederick Martens, music by Pietro Yon (1917)
My younger brother died in 2014 on the day after Christmas or Boxing Day or the Feast Day of St. Stephen. I still miss him.
On a past Christmas Eve, as I am preparing in the early morning to go to the eight o’clock service, I hear on our National Public Radio Station (NPR) a piano arrangement of Gesu Bambino. This is Italian Christmas Carol with O Come All Ye Faithful for the chorus with the music written by Pietro Yon and the lyrics by Frederick Martens.
Suddenly I feel my brother’s presence. My brother sang this as a solo at a Christmas program when he was ten or eleven in the basement of the Baptist church in our hometown, West Point, Virginia. He was taught Gesu by the minister’s son, Bobby Pleasants, who also was an organist and my piano teacher. I wonder where he is now. I give thanks for Bobby for the gift he gave me today by teaching my brother to sing this ethereal Christmas anthem so many years ago. I see and hear my young brother singing like a cherub in the candle light, lifting his head and his eyes as he strains for the high notes, singing with all his might.
This is a Christmas gift from my brother. He is physically very strong. I have many mobility issues. That past Christmas Eve we had four services at St. Mark’s since this had been a short Advent with the fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve falling on the same day. I had been so concerned whether I could physically serve as the deacon at all of these services where almost a thousand people will attend. That morning I am empowered. I felt my brother and his strength beside me. I had no doubt that this was something I could do.
On this second day of Christmas, I pray that each of us are empowered by those before us whom we love and love us to do the ministry we are called to do. Love was born at Christmas. That love never dies.
Joanna joannaseibert.com
