Come, Christmas Child

Come, Christmas Child.  Shirley Erena Murray* (1931-2020). This new four-stanza text, written in 2013, is entitled ‘A Carol for Advent’. It prays for the Christ child to ‘come again in your wonder’ to change the world, to come ‘where our cruelties keep us in chains’ (stanza 2). In a modern phrase, the Christ child is asked to ‘bring us your mindset that mends and restores’, and Murray is acutely aware that children still suffer as the Holy Innocents did: ‘Herod still hunts for the innocent children’. Through ‘the Christmas flurry’ the carol prays for a world in which new life and faithful hearts can bring hope and compassion. It has been given two simple and beautiful tunes: one by Colin...