As Catholics, we know the Gloria as a hymn we sing at Mass on Sundays to give honor, glory and praise to God – the first half praising God the Father and the second half honoring God the Son. The Gloria is referred to as an angelic hymn and is one of the oldest songs we sing at church. “We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you. We give you thanks for your great glory.” As we sing these words towards the beginning of Mass, we come together as a faith community united in our beliefs and united in prayer, ready to hear the word of God and participate in the gift of the Eucharist. It is a song that we sing to give thanks to God for all the blessings in our lives, especially the gift of His Son. It is a song that we sing in awe of the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a song that we sing giving praise to God and acknowledging his greatness. It is a song that unites us as Catholics.
If you have spent any time in the St. Louis area over the past couple of months, you know that Gloria has had a second meaning. It is also the name of a 1982 pop song that was adopted by the St. Louis Blues hockey team on their march to the Stanley Cup finals. A few of the players first heard it at a football playoff watch party in Philadelphia in January. They thought it was fun and enjoyed the way the crowd reacted when it was played. The team won their next game and started playing it in the locker room after wins. It eventually spread to the on-ice celebration after home victories and was quickly adopted by the fans.
To anyone not from the St. Louis region, it can be confusing as to why a hockey team is using an almost forty-year-old pop song as their victory anthem. Talking about the song to anyone from out of town requires telling the story of its origin. I must admit, the first time I heard it after a win, I was confused. The game ended with the playing of the traditional “When the Blues Go Marching In” and then I heard the start of Gloria. It is a song that I liked and had fond memories of listening to with my mom as a child so I immediately recognized it. I started singing along and then a few seconds later thought, wait a minute, is that Gloria that I am hearing after a Blues victory? It was very confusing, but I enjoyed singing along, and it felt good.
As the Blues started to advance trough the playoffs, the song grew in popularity and it became an anthem for our city. The term “Play Gloria” became a popular saying in town. The song moved into regular rotation on the radio, it played at events around town and out of car windows at stop lights and it was common to catch people humming or singing the song as they went about their daily routines. It was everywhere and surprisingly, no one seemed to get tired of it. Not even when a radio station began playing it for twenty-four hours straight when the team advanced to the next round of the playoffs. At one point, I listened to it ten times in a row while running errands around town and sang it as loud the tenth time as I did the first. It just made me happy and I still smile thinking about that day. It was a song that brought us together as fans of this proud hockey franchise that had waited its entire history for a championship. It was a song that brought us together as citizens of this great city. It was a song that reminded us how wonderful it is to call this place home and how thankful we are to live here. It was a song that united us as St. Louisans.
Our region has had a rough time and has received a lot of bad media coverage the past few years. Unfortunately, our faith has as well. In times when we may be feeling down or defeated, it is important to have things that can bring us together and remind us of who we are, what we stand for and what we believe. Often times we do this through song.
Music is a wonderful way to express feelings of joy, whether it is the joy of proclaiming our faith or the joy of rooting for our favorite sports team to win a championship. Music can also be a powerful force for unity. It can unite us as a community, it can unite us as a faith and as I recently experienced, it can unite us as a city.
Singing the Gloria at Mass is meant to direct our hearts and minds towards God. Praising and glorifying Him and reminding us that He should be the center of our lives. We sing it together with our fellow parishioners united in our beliefs and united in prayer. A church singing in unison is a common occurrence but it is not often that we can do the same for an entire city.
As we found out last night, the St. Louis Blues completed their quest for their first ever Stanley Cup. The journey had many ups and downs and ended with the greatest joy you can experience as a sports fan, the celebration of a championship. A struggling hockey team turned their season around through hard work and determination and an entire city behind them, united in song, seemed to provide an extra boost. The Blues and the city of St. Louis finally have the Stanley Cup championship they have longed for all these years. It is a time in our city’s history that we will never forget and as we now know, the singing of a Gloria can be very powerful, in more ways than one.