Rasa Ardys-Juška

There Shines a Star

Rasa Ardys-Juška is the editor of Bridges. Source on traditions: Lithuanian Customs and Traditions by Danutė Brazytė Bindokienė.

Caroling, as we know it, is not the typical Lithuanian fare. In fact, the majority of Christmas songs were written as hymns to be sung by choirs for Midnight Mass (Bernelių Mišios) on Christmas Eve (Kūčios) night or for early Christmas (Kalėdos) morning Mass.

In earlier times, country people would sing hymns as a reverent expression before breakfast on Christmas morning. During the days of the first independence, 1918 to 1939, the country folk would assemble at a landowner’s home and sing, pray, and make merry. During this time period, the city people introduced the custom of decorating a Christmas Tree. The ornaments were chiefly imported from Germany — made of glass in the shapes of toys. In addition, shiny wrappings, apples and candy were hung alongside these glass ornaments. Real candles lit the entire tree. The candles were only used once, on Christmas Eve night for fear of a fire.

This joyous holiday was never commercialized or developed in the same way Americans were doing. The Soviet occupation, with its atheistic stance, forbade celebrating Christmas. Christmas entered the twilight zone — frozen it in a time period long remembered and practiced by immigrants, refugees, and displaced persons living in the free world.

In the United States, as the tradition to celebrate Christmas Eve with the Lithuanian community in schools and parishes took hold, singing the Christmas hymns became more prevalent. Composers expressed their creative talents using Lithuanian-style musical composition and the words of poets.

Christmas hymns have been published by Lithuanian-American groups, as the Lithuanian Organists Guild (Sąjunga Lietuvių Vargoninkų Amerikoje), since as early as the 1900s. The hymn to the right is an example of one composed and published by this guild in 1940.

This particular piece is not widely known, but it represents the subject matter repeated in many of the hymns — both Lithuanian and American…

Be joyful, mankind,
End your sadness,
The long-awaited happy morning
has come!
Christ is born,
We have a sign,
On Bethlehem, there shines a star...u