Priest-composer ‘honored” by Biden quoting his hymn

New York: As Father Michael Joncas watched Joe Biden’s victory speech November 7, he was amazed to hear the presumed president-elect talk about a hymn “close to his heart.

Biden also spoke the refrain of “On Eagle’s Wings”: “And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings/ bear you on the breath of dawn/ Make you to shine like the sun/ And hold you in the palm of his hand.”

Father Joncas wrote those lines 44 years ago, when he was 25 years old. And while he’s composed scores of hymns since, none have risen to the popular heights of “On Eagle’s Wings.” It’s been translated into Italian, Spanish, Polish and other languages. Beyond its use at Sunday Mass, it’s a funeral staple, and in 2015, it was performed at the funeral of opera great Luciano Pavarotti.

As to its inclusion in Biden’s speech, Father Joncas echoed the former vice president’s own words about his election to the nation’s highest office: “I’m honored and humbled.”

In the speech, Biden said that he began thinking about the hymn during the last days of his election campaign, noting, “it means a lot to me and my family, particularly my deceased son, Beau.” Beau Biden died May 30, 2015, at age 46 of brain cancer. “On Eagle’s Wings” was sung during Communion at his funeral at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

The hymn “captures the faith that sustains me and which I believe sustains America, and I hope it can provide some comfort and solace to 230,000 Americans who have lost a loved one to this terrible virus this year. My heart goes out to each and every one of you. Hopefully this hymn gives you solace as well,” Joe Biden said in his speech.

He spoke the refrain, adding, “And now together, on eagle’s wings, we embark on the work that God and history has called upon us to do.”

Father Joncas, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis ordained in 1980, said he listened to Biden’s words with “amazement,” but he wasn’t entirely surprised. “He’s actually quoted it other times,” he said. One other instance was at the funeral of George Floyd, a Black man killed in police custody in Minneapolis May 25 whose death attracted international attention. Biden spoke the hymn’s refrain in a video message for the funeral in Houston.

Father Joncas, 68, plans to send a letter to Biden. Father Joncas shared with a laugh that his sister thinks he should ask for family tickets to the inauguration.

While “On Eagle’s Wings” has sustained popularity in Catholic and broader Christian worship, the hymn isn’t Father Joncas’ favorite.

“For most composers, their favorite song is the latest one they’ve written,” he said. “But I will say this: I’m not ashamed of it (“On Eagle’s Wings), but there are other pieces that personally I’m much more attracted to. Having said that, though, no composer can ever predict what’s going to touch people’s hearts. So, this has, and I’m happy about that.”

An artist-in-residence and research fellow in Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Father Joncas thinks both the text and the musical composition play roles in the way it pulls at listeners’ heartstrings. And it might particularly have American resonance, he noted. In addition to the eagle being the national bird, he pointed to Native American symbolism. He said that it’s a popular hymn for cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy Chapel in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“Textually, I think the image of ‘eagle’ is really grounded in American culture,” he said. “Because the eagle’s our national symbol, that connects with people, too.”

The words are from Scripture, another point of connection. They’re drawn from Psalm 91, the book of Exodus’ 19th chapter, and the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13. Musically, the song “rises and rises and rises and falls to a conclusion,” mirroring the imagery of an eagle’s flight.

But, the song isn’t particularly easy to sing, Father Joncas said. “The refrain especially is very, very wide, from a low ‘A’ to a high ‘E.’”

“And honestly,” he added with a laugh, “that’s the same range as the National Anthem, and the National Anthem is pretty hard to sing, too.”

Father Joncas was inspired to write the song after tragedy hit a friend from seminary. Father Joncas wasn’t a seminarian at the time: After studying at the archdiocese’s high school seminary Nazareth Hall and then at The St. Paul Seminary, he spent some years out of seminary before completing his studies and being ordained. In 1976, he was visiting a friend studying at The Catholic University of America’s Theological College in Washington, D.C., when the two returned from dinner to learn that the friend’s father had died of a heart attack. Father Joncas returned to Minnesota and, in an effort to provide comfort, wrote “On Eagle’s Wings” at his mother’s kitchen table.

That friend was the future Father Douglas Hall, a priest of the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska. Father Joncas performed the hymn on guitar at the wake of Father Hall’s father, and then — at the family’s invitation — the next day at the funeral. And then, in December 2018, he played it at the wake and funeral of Father Hall, a retired Air Force chaplain who died unexpectedly at age 68.

Father Joncas didn’t record and publish the piece until 1979, but it was the title track of the album. “It ended up going places that I never would have guessed,” he said. “I was kind of heartened that it moved beyond the Catholic auspices to the Christian world. … What was absolutely amazing to me is that it started to enter the civic world.”

He noted a particular instance: In April 2019, at a memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing victims attended by both President Bill Clinton and the Rev. Billy Graham, Susan Powell, an Oklahoman and former Miss America, sang the hymn.

“From that point on, I think it started to connect with civic issues, and not just the Church and prayer issues,” Father Joncas said.

In response to Biden’s Nov. 7 speech, pop singer Lana del Rey shared a video on Instagram Nov. 8 of her singing the refrain of “On Eagle’s Wings.” She said she was recording a new album in the studio but took a break to watch Biden’s speech. “He mentioned at the end of it a hymn that he hoped gave Americans hope,” she wrote, “so I thought I would just give a little version of that.”

Father Joncas said he is close to completing his current project, setting to music all of the responsorial hymns in the Church’s three-year cycle of readings. But he’s also still marking the success of his recent composition “Shelter Me,” which he wrote in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“From my perspective, that’s only second now to ‘On Eagle’s Wings,’” he said. “It’s taken off like crazy.”