256: Oremus Pro Pontifice Nostro Leone
Today is the 71st birthday of Pope Leo XIV, the second since he was elected as my family and I drove north through Tennessee on my way to graduate with my bachelor’s, and found out that, by pure happy coincidence, a pre-planned north from Springfield to Chicago to celebrate with family would in fact put us practically in the backyard of Robert Prevost the little boy. To 1.4 billion people, the Pope is very important, and we pray for him every time a Mass is celebrated (24/7, somewhere in the world, every day of the year except Good Friday). To that end, a particular chant seems especially appropriate for today, one which I first found out about at the beginning of Pope Francis’s final illness, as I followed each day of the Rosaries in St. Peter’s Square for his recovery: the “Oremus Pro Pontifice,” which is lyrically distinct from being a musical setting of the Good Friday petition for the Pope. (The chant translates to “Let us pray for N, our Pope. May the Lord preserve him, an...