Origins
The tune of the hymn is reputed to have been composed by seminarians fleeing before the armies of Napoleon in the early 19th century.
The Latin text of the hymn as it has been passed down over the years was composed by one of the earliest seminarians of the college, Gustave Limpens, in 1862. It reflects the fraternity felt at the college at the time, as well as the seminarian's missionary zeal to go to North America. The song composed by Limpens was passed down over the years at the American College, until it gradually became accepted as its signature hymn. The college closed because of the Second World War, but was reopened in 1952 by its sixth rector, Thomas Francis Maloney, who reintroduced the hymn to the college, where it has been sung regularly ever since.
Read more about this topic: O Sodales
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)