The song “Amazing Grace” turned 250 on New Year’s Day.
I know that because I saw it on the news, read it in the paper, and heard it on the radio—all sources of information that, growing up, we took as gospel. Today, many of us listen and watch with suspicious eyes and ears, confident that the announcer has an agenda, a sponsor, and puppet strings he or she cannot even see.
I miss a world without the constant barrage of news. But that is another story.
When I was a child, my mother would have CBS Sunday Morning on in the kitchen. From the time I was nine years old, Charles Kuralt told stories, interviewed guests, and took us places we would never go on our own. After spending nearly a quarter century on the road, Kuralt joined Sunday Morning and had a way to tell a story that drew the viewer into learning something new—something they never would have bothered with—were it not for his southern gentility and distinct, deep voice. He was convinced that people were generally good, that our country was an idea worthy of the messiness, and that everyone had a story to tell.
On a particular Sunday morning decades ago, I was in the kitchen with my mom and Kuralt was telling the story of “Amazing Grace.” Not its history, but how it had inspired people through the years. I don’t remember much of it, except that the singing was mesmerizing. We stood transfixed, my mother and I, staring at this tiny television we occasionally had to smack to get to work, listening to the words, the music, the lyrics. I wish I could remember who was singing. It was towards the end of the show and when the music faded, Kuralt came on with his signature, “I’ll see you again…next Sunday morning,”
Today, I enjoy CBS Sunday Morning via YouTube. Jane Pauley replaced Charles Osgood, who replaced Kuralt back in 1994. Mom is gone, so is Charles Kuralt. We do not have a television in the kitchen and we no longer are tied to cable or a schedule. Progress, I suppose.
So a few weeks ago, I saw the YouTube entry about Amazing Grace and quickly clicked it. Jane Pauley introduced a story about Amazing Grace and its big birthday. As reporter Ramy Inocencio told it:
Sung an estimated 10 million times each year, “Amazing Grace” marks its 250th anniversary this New Year’s Day. It was born not of American Black spirituals as some believe, but across the Atlantic, in the tiny English market town of Olney, some 60 miles north of London, with lyrics older than the Declaration of Independence.
I suppose the song has always held a special place in my heart because of that Sunday morning so long ago. But its simple lyrics are ones that everyone can understand and appreciate. I was lost and now am found, blind and now I see. We can all relate. It can give us all hope.
Just after Charles Kuralt left Sunday Morning back in 1994, country singer Kenny Chesney sang the song at the funeral of my big brother, Jim. Years later, I got to hear the Irish Tenors sing it live. The same with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Josh Groban. Every time I hear it, it takes me back to that Sunday morning in the kitchen, fills my eyes with tears, and warms the depths of my heart, filling an emptiness I forget is there.
Yes, it has been recorded hundreds of times by hundreds of people. But for my money, no recording tops Judy Collins.
This week, find a quiet spot. Click the link below and close your eyes. Let the words written by a slave-trader turned abolitionist and the music added decades later by a Baptist minister, fill the room and warm your heart and soul.
Though many dangers, toils and snares... let the echos of the grace that is all around you each day, carry you away.
Let that grace fill you with hope and lead you home.
Ready?
Let us pray.
By Patrick Donovan
Patrick Donovan serves as the Executive Director of the Institute for Catholic Formation.
