Immaculate Conception students sing their prayers for Damar

Immaculate Conception School in East Aurora showed the power of prayer and their love of the Buffalo Bills as they recorded a video for Damar Hamlin, the Bills safety who suffered cardiac arrest on the field during a Monday Night Football game on Jan. 2.

Principal Mary Pauly sent a message to families encouraging students to wear their best Bills gear on Monday, Jan. 9, to honor Hamlin.

One student is the son of John Butler, defensive backs/passing game coordinator for the Bills. He considers Hamlin an uncle.

“We were all rallying around (the student) because he felt bad,” explained Pauly. “Every day we pray over the morning announcements and the afternoon announcements. We wanted to take it a step further and put it to music.”

The school has been following news stories about Hamlin’s recovery. He was recently released from Buffalo General Medical Center.

“We talk about the power of prayer, and each day we were getting good reports. We felt like our prayers were being heard and we wanted to be more powerful,” Pauly said.

Glenn Colton, music teacher for the school, had a similar idea. He had been working on a song about prayer. So, he led the entire student body to sing the song to strengthen their prayers. Then they made a video to share.

“I had been working on a song with that same theme. So, I called Dr. Pauly. We got the entire K-8 school in the gym. On the fly, I taught them this song,” he said. “The motive is simply to promote love and something that really can’t be celebrated in the public schools, which is what makes our Catholic identity so powerful. We unabashedly celebrate God and prayer in a school.”

“The Power of Prayer (Love for Damar)” shows the students waving hearts with Hamlin’s number 3 on them and singing, “May God keep you safe in the palm of His hand/We send love to you through this healing prayer.”

“We wanted to do this while the Bills season was still going. We thought we’d just create an expression of our faith in the form of this music video,” Colton explained.

The reaction so far?

“Tears,” said Pauly. “People say it really touched their heart.”