My brother Tom is a raconteur of sorts and, in his 80s like I am, he’s remembering things from his earlier years more vividly than where he left his glasses. On a visit a while back, something caused him to remember the words to the Catholic Action Song from his years at St.Thomas High School in Rockford.
It’s a rousing piece composed by Father Daniel Lord, S.J. (pictured) back in 1932. Newly ordained in 1923, He'd reluctantly accepted the task of revivifying the Jesuit-led Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He came to the conclusion that the new name of Student Catholic Action was needed. His creativity led him to draft a theme song—The Catholic Action Hymn.
Tom was able to break out in song and remembered most of the words so well, he proved the saying “Long term memory is the last to go.”
Chorus:
An army of youth flying the standards of truth,
We’re fighting for Christ, our Lord.
Heads lifted high, Christian action our cry,
And God’s word our only sword.
On earth’s battlefield never a vantage we’ll yield
As dauntlessly on we sing.
Christians true, dare and do ’neath the King’s white and blue,
For our God, for our faith, for Christ the King.
An army of youth flying the standards of truth,
We’re fighting for Christ, our Lord.
Heads lifted high, Christian action our cry,
And God’s word our only sword.
On earth’s battlefield never a vantage we’ll yield
As dauntlessly on we sing.
Christians true, dare and do ’neath the King’s white and blue,
For our God, for our faith, for Christ the King.
Christ lifts His hands; the King commands;
His challenge, “Come and follow Me.”
From every side, With eager stride,
We form in the lines of victory.
Let foe-men lurk, and laggards shirk,
We throw our fortunes with the Lord,
God’s own son, till the world is won.
We have pledged you our loyal word.
His challenge, “Come and follow Me.”
From every side, With eager stride,
We form in the lines of victory.
Let foe-men lurk, and laggards shirk,
We throw our fortunes with the Lord,
God’s own son, till the world is won.
We have pledged you our loyal word.
Chorus
Our hearts are pure, our minds are sure;
No sin our gleaming helmet taints.
No foe-man fierce our shield shall pierce;
We’re captained by God’s unconquered Son.
Yet peace we bring, and a gentle King,
Whose law is light and life and love?
God’s own son, may thy will be done
Here on earth as it is above.
Chorus
Daniel Lord, S.J. The Queen’s Work, St. Louis, MO © 1932
It’s interesting to note how the words of this rally cry shows up in various works.
An autobiographical remembrance of the CSA in the Philippines in 2011 on the occasion of the 75th anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee, of Student Catholic Action (SCA) recalls the impact of the organization and its theme song.
On page 125 of the David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How It Changed America, the author has the song as background to a fictional comic book burning.
What’s particularly interesting is that most of us who remember the song know little or nothing of the life of its composer. The 2005 article about Daniel Lord writes 55 years after his death is linked above. It indicates some of the criticism Lord received from his Jesuit confreres and other for his popularizing approach to the serious work of education. But also catalogued are the volumes of works he wrote capturing the imagination of young people. His works taken as a whole sold 25 million copies by the 1960s.
The military imagery the song doesn’t click with kids today, but in our day of growing up in the 1940s and 50s the song’s “jaunty march tune and lofty sentiments about duty, honor and devotion made it a hit with its intended youth audience.”
That militaristic terminology of the past has yielded to a concept of the Church that recognizes that
The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. [Gaudium et Spes §1]
Today those confirmed are no longer spoken of soldiers of Christ, but as receiving the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence.…filling them with the spirit of wonder and awe in your presence through a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost [Catechism of the Catholic Church §. 1299 & 1302].
Welcome change for advocates for social justice and peace!
Perhaps the idealistic phrase of the first line’s “flying the banner of truth” still calls to all of us in our day to avoid being taken in by Barnum-esque peddlers of half truths and lies.
And the nostalgia that warms the heart of my brother and so many others looking back to former times will keep us remembering the song that captured our imagination during those younger days when we needed the kind of idealism expressed in the words of the song of that time long ago.
