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A Song From My Uncle
It was sung at his memorial service Saturday. My cousin, Mary, said he never wrote a note of music in his life. You’re just supposed to sort of give yourself to the music with an Irish enthusiasm. It works.
Published in GeneralTake my heart, O Lord, take my hopes and dreams.
Take my mind with all its plans and schemes.
Give me nothing more but your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.Take my thoughts, O Lord, and my memory.
Take my tears, my joys and my liberty.
Give me nothing more but your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.I surrender, Lord, all I have and hold.
I return to you your gifts untold.
Give me nothing more but your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.When darkness falls on my final days,
take the very breath that sang your praise.
Give me nothing more but your love and grace.
These alone, O God, are enough for me.— John Bossidy (04.18.1931 – 06.18.2019)
God really did take his hopes and dreams, his mind’s plans and schemes, his thoughts and his memory. The last time I saw him he didn’t know who I was.
And still he died a truly blessed man.
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.
Did someone know the melody? Or did you all just make it up as you went along? Great lyrics.
My cousin knew it.
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Lovely. And sorry for your loss.
And really, that’s all we need. The rest is gravy . . .
The hymn is new to me. I take it your uncle, s_s, wrote the lyrics? Perhaps you know this already–whoever wrote the lyrics knew Saint Ignatius Loyola’s Suscipe; here’s one translation from the Latin:
Take Lord and receive
all my memory, my understanding, my entire will,
all I have and call my own.
Whatever I have or hold you have given me;
I restore it all to you and surrender it wholly
to be governed by your will;
give me only your love and your grace,
and I am rich enough
and ask for nothing more.
***
The hymn is a sweet versifying of a severely beautiful prayer. That prayer’s my morning offering; my uncle was a Jesuit priest, and so good a man that he could say it and mean it; for me it remains aspirational.
For visiting your uncle when he no longer knew you, you surely are blessed, a sign of that in the gift of a song at his farewell.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew Saint Loyola’s poem.
I did not visit him. He was at a family gathering. I did not see much of him recent years. I am blessed but this is not why. Thank you.