It was Christmas Eve in 1818 and the young priest Joseph Mohr was despondent. The organ in St. Nikola Church, where he was serving in the Austrian village of Oberndorf near Salzburg, was broken.

The steepled church was on the banks of a sharp bend in the Salzach River, and flooding had damaged the organ — though some stories say the instrument wasn’t working because mice had gnawed the leather bellows.

What could Father Mohr do? He needed to play at least one piece of music at Christmas Mass, just hours away.

Then he remembered a poem he’d written two years earlier and had an idea.

In the brisk winter air, with a copy of the poem in his pocket he walked the three kilometers to see his friend Franz Xaver Gruber in the neighboring village of Oberndorf bei Salzburg.

Franz was a schoolteacher and the church choirmaster and organist. He also played the guitar.

The priest told him about the problem and showed him the poem.

Could he put some music to the lyrics?

With quill pen and ink, Franz sat down and began putting musical notes on paper, trying them out on his guitar as the oil lamp flickered.

Several hours later, the musical composition was finished.

It was time for Mass. The simple melody would just have to do.

Father Joseph named it Stille Nacht — German for “Silent Night.”

Father Joseph and Franz donned their overcoats and quickly headed for the church.

Before the small congregation at that Christmas service, the two men sang and played the new carol — the gentle music drifting out into the crystalline winter night, faintly echoing off the nearby alpine hills.

There was something reassuring about Stille Nacht. It was born at a time when much of Europe was still anguishing as the Napoleonic War raging around them was coming to an end.

Adding to the suffering, two years before that Christmas Mass, crops had failed and there was famine in “the year without summer.”

The people were ready for a spiritual renewal.

The villagers in that little Austrian town had one that Christmas Eve as they listened to the reassuring Stille Nacht words of peace, faith, love, hope and the brotherhood of nations.

SEE THE FULL STORY SUNDAY IN THE PRESS.