FaithWorld

Michael Bolton sings for the saints in Assisi

Philip Pullella

Dec 20, 2010 11:07 EST

Michael Bolton has gone from Dancing with the Stars to singing for the saints.

“I feel humbled here,” Bolton said after recording the traditional Christmas concert in the frescoed basilica of St Francis of Assisi with Israeli singer Noa and New York conductor Steven Mercurio. “I feel humbled to be reminded of the teachings of St Francis, which I was introduced to at a very young age. I don’t know anyone who is not moved by his story,” he said.

With Giotto’s awe-inspiring frescoes of the scenes in the life of St. Francis on both sides of him, Bolton sang “The Prayer,” “O Holy Night,” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” for the concert that will be broadcast on Eurovision on Dec 25.

The Umbrian hill town where St Francis lived 800 years ago is a long way from New Haven, Connecticut, where Bolton was born into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants 57 years ago. “There is something special about this place. I have performed in churches and cathedrals and holy sites but there is something about being in the presence of everything that has been inspired by St Francis,” he said.

“When you’re doing Christian songs … there is a very different focus that you have to deliver. As a singer it is one of the very few times that you have to get out of the way. You have to hit the notes, but become a servant and it reminds you that St Francis was all about service to humanity.”

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IAEA’s ElBaradei bows out with prayer of St. Francis

Tom Heneghan

Nov 28, 2009 09:59 EST

Mohamed ElBaradei, a Muslim from Egypt, has finished his 12-year term as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quoting one of Christianity’s most popular prayers. In a short meeting at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on Friday, the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate said that “the moment of departure is an opportunity to reflect upon a journey of joy, challenges, pleasure and fulfilment.” At the end of his career at the IAEA, which began in 1984 as a legal adviser, the world was “finally returning to its senses. People are speaking of a world free of nuclear weapons, of one human family and of a world that lifts people out of poverty.”

He ended his final remarks to the Board of Governors by reading out a short version of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord make me an instrument of your peace: Where there is hatred let me sow love Where there is error let me sow truth Where there is discord let me sow unity Where there is despair let me sow hope For it is in giving that we receive.

The Italian saint has clearly been on ElBaradei’s mind in his final days as head of the IAEA. On Nov. 17, he visited Assisi, birthplace and burial place of St. Francis, and called him “a man whose life of self-sacrifice and dedication to serving the poor remains a powerful inspiration for people of all faiths eight centuries after his death” .

Three days later, delivering the 2009 Willy Brandt lecture at Berlin’s Humboldt University, he ended his address by saying: “This week, I was invited to speak at the Sacred Convent of St. Francis of Assisi. I was absolutely gripped by one of St. Francis´s prayers, in which he says: ‘Lord, make me a channel of your peace.’ I pray that every one of us will be a channel for peace.”