The song was composed by Jan Michael Joncas, a Catholic priest who now teaches contemporary Catholic music at the University of St. Thomas. He tells America Magazine he wrote the song after he found out that his friend's father had died of a heart attack. "I knew this was a hard, hard experience in anybody's life, [and I] just wanted to create something that would be both prayerful and then comforting," he said in 2017. The song was written after he had attended the wake of his friend's father, and it rose to prominence after the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma's Federal Building, when the governor's wife asked if the song could be played during a memorial for those whose lives had been taken. 

The song is now regularly played at funerals; it was, according to Delaware Online — even played at the Catholic funeral service of President-elect Biden's son Beau in 2015. Joncas says "I think I've written deeper and better pieces, but this one, for whatever reason, touched people's hearts, and I'm not gonna yell about that."

It will be interesting to hear what Joncas has to say about the new heights his music has scaled — because as one Twitter user posted: "Never in our life would we expect "On Eagle's Wings" would be quoted in a presidential acceptance speech."