Top Catholic Songs

David Gawron writes: This one lyric line (the favorite I've ever written) sums the song up:

"The broken shackles of humanity cannot compare at all to what lies ahead."

The song stems from the phrase in the rosary, which prompted me to think, "Hmm... what IS it like at the moment we die?" So the lyrics explore that theme, and all the potential emotions attached to that.

The verses were written rather easily, but I couldn't come up with a chorus, opposite of how I usually write. My housemate at the time (I was in graduate school at the Franciscan University of Steubenville), Jim Moran, had a little tune he'd wander around humming sometimes. He didn't have words for it or or verse ideas, but it was a great tune. It is now the At The Hour chorus, and it works fantastically as a complement to the verses.

The verses are very pensive and melancholy, as we say goodbye to the corporal life we've known. The chorus is supposed to be the angels greeting us as we pass into eternity with our Lord Jesus. An artist created two watercolor paintings to illustrate the lyrics:

At the Hour of Our Death
Words and Music by David Gawron

Click here to listen: soundclick.com/song/4948369

Time stands still from where I lay
I feel my life slippin’ away
The Holy Spirit breathes into me, O Lord
My bruised and battered soul is set free...