It was snowing and sleeting, and most rational people were keeping to their homes, even on the last weekend before Christmas. We kept checking to see if the Oratorio Chorale was going to cancel its Saturday afternoon performances of “Sing We Noel,” its annual Christmas concert, which this year was held at St. Paul’s in Brunswick. There was no notice of cancellation on any of the news sites, and the Oratorio Chorale’s own website said that the concerts would go on as scheduled, so we gave ourselves an hour to travel the 10 miles and headed out through a world barely recognizable in the white and the gloom.

The parking lots were covered with snow and hadn’t been plowed in hours, but by some Christmas miracle, we negotiated the snow banks and cars parked somewhat haphazardly to get into a spot right by the door.

And that’s when the real Christmas miracle began.

In the darkened church, we were transported to a medieval monastery, with monks — well, actually tenors and baritones, with handbell ringers among them, intoning an allelujah, which joyously erupted into a three-part Latin motet, conducted by Emily Isaacson, in which the female voices were added to the men’s, and flowed directly into a movement from Mendelssohn’s Elijah, which the chorale had performed earlier in the fall.

Interspersed with audience singalongs of familiar carols, the performance included Renaissance sacred music, sacred Baroque music from Bach’s Christmas oratorios and works by Monteverdi, pieces by Mendelssohn, modern carols such as “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” with a haunting free-style section in which each singer held a part or sang at different rates, raising a point about the individuality of faith. There were also traditional hymns, a true African-American spiritual, “Mary Had a Baby” and a latter-day homage to the spiritual, “I Got a Home In Dat Rock,” arranged by Moses Hogan, with solos by Natalie Landry, Andy Pitteroff, and Micaela Tepler, that nearly brought the house down.

An intimate candlelit rendition of “Silent Night,” sung by the chorale in the aisles, was followed by the sun rising again and the audience joining in with “Joy to the World” as we all wished one another a Merry Christmas and a right blessed Yuletide.

Somehow, the roads were better on the way home, and the fellow travelers less hurried, everyone less focused on the work to be done to get through Christmas, and more thoughtful about the possibilities of something deeper and more meaningful arising from the season at the darkest hour of the year.

If you get a chance to see “Sing We Noel” next Christmas, please don’t miss it. It will change your perspective on the season.