A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

Please join us for a candlelit service in honor of our Savior's birth! Meditate on Scripture readings from the Old and New Testaments, listen to beautiful choral music and join in singing classic carols for the Advent and Christmas seasons. A light, but festive reception to follow in the church narthex.

Music provided by the adult and youth choirs of Most Holy Redeemer - Nativity Church.

Music:

Matin Responsory, Palestrina

Adam Lay Ybounden, Peter Warlock

Come thou Redeemer of the Earth, traditional carol

Creator of the Stars of Night, traditional chant

The People that Walked in Darkness, G.F. Handel

Lo How a Rose ere Blooming, traditional carol

Angelus ad Virginem, David Willcocks

In the Bleak Midwinter, traditional carol

Pastores a Belen, traditional Puerto Rican carol

Il est Ne, le divin Enfant, traditional French carol

And more!

About the Venue

The Parish of Most Holy Redeemer was founded in 1844 by German-speaking Redemptorist missionaries serving New York City’s large German immigrant population. Like many other sites in the East Village, its history can be traced back to a time when the area was known as Kleindeustchland or Little Germany. The current church was designed by the Munich architect, Joseph Walch, and construction was completed in October 1851. A Catholic publication of the day called Most Holy Redeemer “the most beautiful and largest (church) in New York,” and it soon earned popular acclaim as "The German Cathedral of the Lower East Side.”

Most Holy Redeemer was consecrated on 28th November 1852, by the Archbishop of New York, John Hughes, and the Pontifical Mass that day was celebrated by the Archbishop of Philadelphia, named John Neumann who was invited by his fellow Redemptorists to take part in the ceremony. Neumann was canonized by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1977 becoming the first male citizen of the United States to be raised to the altar as a saint.

On 1st August 2015, the nearby Parish of the Nativity was closed and merged with Most Holy Redeemer creating a new entity to serve the Catholics of the East Village called the Parish of Most Holy Redeemer - Nativity. The Servant of God and founder of the Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day lived and died at Maryhouse on East Third Street directly between Most Holy Redeemer and the former Nativity Church. A shrine with a statue of the “Virgin of the Poor” which once stood in nativity Church was erected here at Most Holy Redeemer in honor of Dorothy Day’s legacy.

The mortal remains of 85 Redemptorist priests and brothers, who ministered to the people of the East Village, are interred in the crypt located directly below the church.

In 2018, the Redemptorist Order withdrew from the parish which is now administered by priests of the Archdiocese of New York.