Posted on 08/26/2019 7:18:08 PM PDT by marshmallow
After nearly 50 years, men who wrote contemporary music for Mass have their final concert together
ST. LOUIS (ChurchMilitant.com) - The men responsible for some of the most popular songs sung at Mass are having their final concert in September.
Back in the 1970s, five men in formation with the Jesuits in St. Louis, Missouri, began writing songs that they would then sing during Mass — typically with accompaniment on the guitar. The songs that they wrote were simple, folksy and thoroughly modern.
They became known as the St. Louis Jesuits. Each man worked independently, but they often helped each other fine-tune their songwriting.
Much of their music is published in common pew hymnals such as Gather and Glory and Praise. A number of songs by the St. Louis Jesuits, such as "Here I Am, Lord," "Lift Up Your Hearts," "Though the Mountains May Fall" and "Be Not Afraid," are frequently sung at Mass in the United States and throughout the English-speaking world.
The St. Louis Jesuits have had prolific careers in the realm of religious music, winning various awards and acclamations.
Now, the group is performing one final concert together. The concert, titled "Coming Home," is scheduled for Sept. 29 at Powell Hall in St. Louis — just a few blocks from where the St. Louis Jesuits began writing songs almost 50 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at churchmilitant.com ...
The book “Why Catholics Can’t Sing” heaps mounds of scorn on “Here I Am, Lord” As a celebration of self, plus lifting a key part of the tune from the Brady Bunch theme (“Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord, who was bringing up three very lovely girls?”)
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There is nothing more mind numbing than 4 old ex-hippies playing at a guitar mass and trying to sing the St. Louis Jesuits drivel. They are almost all gone but if you attend mass in a college town, you run into “the might wind” .
I am not Catholic but have been to a number of Catholic weddings and funerals and have always been unimpressed with the music. So that’s where it came from.
Why do churches, Catholic and otherwise, find it necessary to replace magnificent and profound traditional hymnody with this kind of stuff?
The music industry needs to keep selling new songs. Not enough money to be made from tunes that are so old there is no copyright on them. JMHO.
Then they need to write better songs. : )
The hymnal was called, “Come to Jesus (in whole notes).”
A lot of their stuff is pretty insipid but I have to confess I really like Be Not Afraid
Easy to understand.
I do too. It’s a beautiful song.
Woodstock be dead, man!
St. Louis Jesuits? Is that their new XFL team?
Deo Gracias.
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