The Twelfth Day of Christmas – The Quempas Celebration

The Quempas Celebration is largely a Lutheran Christmas Eve tradition. (We have it out of place today by posting about it on the Twelfth Day of Christmas.)

“Quempas” is the shortened title of the Latin Christmas carol “Quem pastores laudavere” (“He whom the shepherds praised”), popular in Germany in the sixteenth century, and used as a generic term for Christmas songs in a German caroling tradition.

The earliest sources of the carol are from the fifteenth century, including the Hohenfurth Monastery Ms. 28 (1410). Many versions exist from the sixteenth century. The most famous version is from Michael Prætorius, Musae Sioniae(1607), with the German text “Den die Hirten lobeten sehre.”

During a short prelude on the Quempas four groups of children station themselves in the four corners of the church. Group A sings the first phrase of the Quempas, group B the second phrase, group C the third phrase, and group D the fourth phrase. (This symbolizes the announcement of Christ’s birth to the four corners of the world.) While the adult choir sings the first stanza of the Nunc angelorum, the children move to new stations. Congregation, choirs and instruments join in the refrain Resonet in laudibus. The remaining stanzas are sung in the same way.

“God’s own Son is born a Child; God the Father is reconciled!” That’s the refrain of the Quempas Carol. It’s also the “Reason for the Season;” the reason we celebrate the miraculous and wonderful birth of Jesus because He was born to bring reconciliation between God and sinful human beings.

Here is Michael Prætorius’ rendering of the Quempas Celebration: