Eine umfassende Darstellung der anglo-katholischen Sicht zur Unbefleckten Empfängnis bietet F. Hasting Smyth, The Immaculate Conception of Saint Mary The Virgin. An Eirenic Essay, McGuire-Johnson Publishers, Wadsworth IL 1954.
hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com
Der Weihnachtsgottesdienst im römisch-katholischen Ritus, an dem er in Bethlehem teilnahm, wurde von Brooks zunächst als „langatmiger und ermüdender Mummenschanz“ empfunden, scheint aber bei ihm dennoch in der späteren Erinnerung einen nachhaltigen Eindruck hinterlassen zu haben. Brief von Philipps Brooks an seinen Vater (30. Dezember 1865): „My energetic letter-writing has paused for a week. It take it up again to tell you you of my tours around Jerusalem. Last Sunday morning we attended service in the English church, and after an early dinner took our horses and rode to Bethlehem. It was only about two hours when we came to the town, situated on an eastern ridge of a range of hills, surrounded by its terraced gardens. It is a good-looking town, better built than any other we have seen in Palestine. The great church of the Nativity is its most prominent object; it is shared by the Greeks, Latins, and Armenians, and each church has a convent attached to it. We were hospitably received in the Greek convent, and furnished with a room. Before dark, we rode out of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with a cave in it (all the Holy Places are caves here), in which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. The story is absurd, but somewhere in those fields we rode through the shepherds must have been, and in the same fields the story of Ruth and Boaz must belong. As we passed, the shepherds were still 'keeping watch over their flocks,' or leading them home to fold. We returned to the convent and waited for the service, which began about ten o'clock and lasted until three (Christmas). It was the old story of a Romish service, with all its mummery [= ein katholischer Gottesdienst mit all seinem Mummenschanz], and tired us out. They wound up with a wax baby, carried in procession, and at last laid in the traditional manger, in a grotto under the church. The most interesting part was the crowd of pilgrims, with their simple faith and eagerness to share in the ceremonial. We went to bed very tired. Christmas morning we rode up to town and went to service. It rained all that day, and we stayed in the house. The next morning we were off for our trip to the Jordan …“ (Letters of Travel by Phillips Brooks, hrsg. v. M. F. B. Dutton, New York 1894, S. 69f.); Brief von Phillips Brooks an die Kinder der Sonntagsschulen von Holy Trinity und Chapel in Philadelphia (Rom, 19. Februar 1866): „I remember especially on Christmas Eve, when I was standing in the old church at Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with the splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices that I knew well, telling each other of the 'Wonderful Night’ of the Saviour’s birth, as I heard them a year before; and I assure you I was glad to shut my ears for a while and listen to the more familiar strains that came wandering to me halfway round the world.“ (Letters of Travel by Phillips Brooks, hrsg. v. M. F. B. E. P. Dutton, New York 1894, S. 85 f.).
Carlton A. Young: Companion to the United Methodist Hymnals. Abingdon Press 1993, S. 519: „As Christmas of 1868 approached, Mr. Brooks told me that he had written a simple little carol for the Christmas Sunday-school service, and he asked me to write the tune to it. The simple music was written in great haste and under great pressure. We were to practice it on the following Sunday. Mr. Brooks came to me on Friday, and said, ‘Redner, have you ground out that music yet to “O Little Town of Bethlehem”?’ I replied, ‘No,’ but that he should have it by Sunday. On the Saturday night previous my brain was all confused about the tune. I thought more about my Sunday-school lesson than I did about the music. But I was roused from sleep late in the night hearing an angel-strain whispering in my ear, and seizing a piece of music paper I jotted down the treble of the tune as we now have it, and on Sunday morning before going to church I filled in the harmony. Neither Mr. Brooks nor I ever thought the carol or the music to it would live beyond that Christmas of 1868.“ (nach dem Briefwechsel Louis F. Benson mit Redner von 1901)
Der Eintrag in Wikisource bietet neben einer wörtlichen deutschen Übersetzung auch eine ältere singbare deutsche Fassung („O Bethlehem, du Städtchen klein“). Eine modernere deutsche Fassung von Helmut Barbe 1954 findet sich im Evangelischen Gesangbuch, Nr. 55 („O Bethlehem, du kleine Stadt“).
