The Slow Work: On Eagle's Wings
All four of my grandparents have passed on. My father's father died when Dad was in college, long before my mother (and, thus, I) came on the scene. Dad's mother died when I was two, so I don't really remember her. But Mom's parents I remember very clearly. Grandpa died in October of 1991, and Grandma passed away in August of 2001. There are a handful of things that I remember from those funerals. For Grandpa's, I remember the torrential rains in the 24 hours beforehand, flooding the streets and requiring the police in the small town where they lived to take us to the church in the "paddywagon." For Grandma's, I remember that the pastor of the parish in which she had been a member for 50 years couldn't be bothered to come to the wake. But what I remember maybe the most clearly was one of the hymns, sung at both of those services. It was "On Eagle's Wings," by Fr. Michael Joncas. This song came to mind because President-elect J...