https://www.ncronline.org/news/eagles-wings-turns-50-journey-behind-song-has-consoled-world "By the mid-1970s, Fr. Michael Joncas was a 24-year-old from Minneapolis who had temporarily left the path to priesthood, uncertain about his vocation, immersed in church music, liturgy and the turbulence of America after Vietnam. Five decades later, the hymn he wrote during a moment of private grief, "On Eagle's Wings," has become one of the most recognizable religious songs in the English-speaking world, crossing denominational boundaries and accompanying funerals, memorial services and moments of national mourning, from parish churches to presidential speeches. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the hymn's creation, a song born quietly in 1975 and first sung publicly at a funeral in Omaha, Nebraska, in April 1976. "It was honestly to help my friend Doug and his family deal with the death of their dad," Joncas told the National Catholic Reporter at his apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the original handwritten score remains framed beside a large wooden crucifix. "Consolation. That was the reason." Fr. Michael Joncas poses by the original 1976 score of "On Eagle's Wings" in his apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota, May 2026. (NCR photo/Camillo Barone) Full article at link above.
