Josh and Becca Thrap and Family

Most of my memories of being put to bed as a little girl involve my dad and big, long books and or war protest songs. Good times. But, even though I still give my mom crap about her being the one to fall asleep when she would come to tuck me in, I also clearly remember her lullabyes. Although I never really understood them (because they were not in English), and I often criticized my mom’s singing voice in church, her lullabyes were very soothing. When I became a mother I had my own special blend of lullabyes (Modified versions of Lionel Ritchie, Tina Turner, and Will Smith songs), but in a pinch, when I NEEDED the kid to go to sleep, I would cuddle them up and sing just above a whisper “Dona Nobis Pacem.” Over and over and over.
Lately, Josh has been needing to stay away some nights for work and so bedtime has been all up to me. Usually that is really more his arena, and ever since we got rid of the crib he has put Elena to sleep in his lap downstairs in front of the news on tv and then taken her up to bed. So, it feels like a lot for me to deal with. Good ol’ Dona Nobis Pacem! I put the kids to bed and hold Elena in place in her bunk and start to sing. At first she starts singing other words with me, but I just droll on and within minutes she is down for the count. The first time I did this last week, Elise heard me and when I’d gotten Elena asleep she asked if I’d continue to sing it to her–she thought it was pretty. I told her that when she was Elena’s age she could be a real handful at bedtime and that I would sing this same song to her. Tonight, Josh is in Missouri again. So, once again I sang Elena to sleep and this time Jacob heard me and when I got her asleep he asked if I would continue to sing it to him. He said that he remembered hearing it when he was a baby (and probably more likely he remembers it from when Elise and Cameron were babies, but I humored him). I told him how my mom used to sing it to me when I was a little girl and he said “so its been passed down through generations?” I guess now it has. So. Since I had all this going on in my mind I decided to Google the phrase and see what I could learn about it. (The first thing I learned was the correct spelling, because I’d been spelling it phonetically for my search and–I’d never been sure if it was a “B” or a “P” in the second word.) I was amazed that I found it right away–430,000 matches on Google!
Wikipedia told me this: Dona nobis pacem (Latin: Give us peace) is a phrase in the Agnus Dei section of the Roman Catholic mass. It was set as a separate, final movement in Bach’s Mass in B Minor. The phrase, in isolation, has been appopriated for other works:

Dona nobis pacem, a cantata by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1937).
One section of Adiemus V: Vocalise, by Karl Jenkins (2003).
One track of the album No Boundaries, by Ladysmith Black Mambazo (2006).
At the end of “Pray Your Gods” by Toad the Wet Sprocket (1992).
It appeared in the Kenneth Branagh film Henry V.

And you can hear the tune by going to http://www.cvc.org/christmas/DonaNobis.ram