The Te Deum for Today
Christopher Columbus was over fifty by the time he set sail across the abyss we now call the Atlantic Ocean. He had tried to convince the monarchs of Portugal and Italy to fund his exploration and was turned down multiple times by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain.
Everyone thought he was crazy. They could probably see through his illusions of grandeur. His life’s dream was shattered because he couldn’t get any venture capital.
There he was, old and riding a donkey across the mountains on his way out of Spain, when a messenger caught up to him. I picture it in breathless phrases: “Columbus! . . . The Queen! . . . She will pay . . . for your ships . . . and your crew!”
Queen Isabella had changed her mind and decided to back his plan after all. But dear old Chris got a little cocky. He thought he now had bargaining power with the Queen. He did not. She turned down his demands for 10 percent of the take in whatever lands he might discover. No, in her view, he was there to gain riches for Spain, should his foolhardy venture actually pay off. He was just the guy willing to do the dirty work, willing to risk his life for the crown’s glory.
We all know what happened. Columbus’ story is one of the most famous ever told. What you may not know is what happened when Admiral Columbus arrived back on European shores.
One account I read went like this: nearing the Portuguese coast on the return trip, Columbus had delegated the steering to a sailor, who then delegated the job to a ship’s boy. The boy, of course, was too small for the job, and botched it, leaving the Santa Maria aground.
Eventually, Columbus made it back to Barcelona, ready to present his story, and his human and material loot to the King and Queen. At the end of his description of the beautiful lands and sure riches that would now belong to Spain, the chapel choir erupted in what was at that time a common liturgical praise hymn, the Te Deum.
I can hear the humble confession echoing off stone, hundreds of years ago: “We praise You, O God; we acknowledge You to be the Lord.”[1]
Nowadays, our interpretation of Columbus’ voyages is fraught with the knowledge of all the human suffering which followed it, but the fact remains that the first reaction of the Spanish people was to erupt in praise of God for this sea change he had wrought in the known world.
We praise You, O God; we acknowledge You to be the Lord.
All the earth now worships You, the Father everlasting.
To You all angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therein.
These words, written in fourth-century Latin, have been important enough to be put to music by legendary composers the centuries through.
My favorite setting of the Te Deum is this versification by Steven Starke. But mostly, I love the simplicity of its confession:
To You Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Your glory.
Of course, God is pleased to be praised and acknowledged at any moment, by anyone, for any reason. It doesn’t have to be an ostentatious event, like crowning the Queen of England, or discovering a New World across an ocean thought impassable.
Your husband just got a raise? We praise You, O God.
Your kid hit a double at baseball tonight? Te Deum laudámus.
You got the house clean just under the wire before company came to visit? We praise You, O God.
The sitter said yes to watching the hooligans on Friday so you and hubby get a date night. TE DEUM LAUDÁMUS.
Praise him. Acknowledge him to be the Lord. All the earth does.
If we look back on Columbus, his mixed motives and his very flawed character, it’s awfully hard to understand a person like that. “So hypocritical,” we think. A little crazy, probably. Brave, sure. Fervent in his faith, definitely.
In a few hundred years, who can say what people will say about us? We certainly have mixed motives and flawed characters. The best we can hope is that they’ll recognize in us the simple truth represented in the Te Deum: that we praise God, that we acknowledge God to be the Lord, that we join in the choir of the faithful through the ages to worship the God who made new worlds for our discovery.
[1] Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod Commission on Worship, Lutheran Service Book (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), 223.
is a homeschooling mom of five and proud Navy wife. She works hard to be what Chesterton called a “Jill-of-all-trades,” chronically trying new projects for the sheer joy of exploration. She’s addicted to coffee, enjoys dark beer, and loves to be in the mountains. She writes at HomeschoolFamilyCulture.com, and you can find her on Instagram @rhikutzer.
Photograph © Aaron Burden, used with permission
