Leo died in 2019 and left behind a wonderful testament to his faith in the compositions he so brilliantly created. Back in 1998 Leo asked me to write the text for an Easter hymn he was preparing for the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. I just learned tonight that the hymn will soon be published as a part of a collection of his 49 hymns. Here is the text:
When first he showered grace within my mother’s womb,
Christ knew my heart, my face, and freed me from the gloom.
Then washed by water, in his blood,
he made this child a son like him,
both cleansed and freed by second flood.
O undeserving grace which leads me to the tomb,
to rise to see his face, born of the Church’s womb;
Now one with Christ the Lord above
I rise from tombs of secret sin,
to gentle patience, mercy, love.
I sing of Christ who gives what I can never take,
a grace that’s only his all pains and thirsts to slake.
Which bears all sorrows, fears and pain,
his presence makes my weakness strength
Till I shall rise with Christ again.
Leo served with me on the Committee which helped prepare the USCCB document Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship. So when I think of him singing with the angels before the face of God tonight (he's probably conducting them!), I recall a line from paragraph 15 of that document:
Christ always invites us to enter into song, to rise above our own preoccupations, and to give our entire selves to the hymn of his Paschal Sacrifice for the honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity.
Sing well, Leo. Sing well.
