Publications

Liturgical Music: Spanning the Test of Time

Music, like memories, can bridge the span of time. It can mean one thing when it is first heard and something different when it is recalled later in life. The music of the St. Louis Jesuits follows this pattern. Both listeners, and the artists themselves, have experienced this transition.

"It’s important to connect our past with our present," said Fr. Roc O’Connor, SJ, member of the St. Louis Jesuits, rector of the Jesuit community and theology instructor at Creighton University. "What it meant for any of us to sing these songs 30 years ago is one very good thing. What it means to sing them today in the midst of a terribly different world is a different, yet equally important, thing."

The St. Louis Jesuits is the liturgical music group created when O’Connor, Fr. Bob Dufford, SJ, Fr. John Foley, SJ, Dan Schutte and Tim Manion were all attending St. Louis University. The music swept through churches and the 1975 album "Earthen Vessels" has sold more than 1 million copies. Dufford now works at the Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh, Wis., and Foley is director for liturgy at St. Louis University. Schutte and Manion are no longer Jesuits.

At the Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha this fall, more than 1,800 people crowded to hear the St. Louis Jesuits perform live. The concert was a benefit for the Jesuit Middle School of Omaha and St. Peter Claver/Cristo Rey High School.

The concert also included more than 185 "back-up" singers as the group was joined by voices from local parishes as well as the Creighton University Chamber Choir with Tony Ward, director of music ministry at St. John’s conducting the choir and instrumentalists.

O’Connor told of how songs such as "Lift Up Your Hearts" and "Jesus the Lord" spoke to his life over the years.

"The songs grew up with me and I’ve grown with them," he said. "They are prime examples of finding songs as vehicles for relating to God more deeply throughout the years and in different seasons of life. They allowed me not only to know God better, but to know myself better by singing them with more awareness."

O’Connor described a shift in the meaning of one of his early compositions, "Lift Up Your Hearts." He said the focus at the time of writing was the rhythm and drive of the music, which was inspired by "We Will Rock You."

"I wanted to find a way to express the joyful and ecstatic sense of Psalm 66 in liturgical prayer," he said. "It felt like a natural fit for it and the verses came together fairly easily. It seemed like a basically cheerful sort of song." For O’Connor, the song meant something different even two years later.

"It was about nine months after ordination when the last part of the last verse really struck me" he said. "I had gone through a pretty difficult time of loss and wasn’t exactly on good terms with God. One day in the midst of it all, I heard that final verse in a new way. It helped me recognize God’s faithfulness and to even give thanks for the hard times."

The lyrics to that verse are: "Listen now, all you servants of God, as I tell of these great works. Blessed be the Lord of my life, whose love shall endure!"

O’Connor said that today even with the painful divisions in the world and church, the song still can serve as an "act of faith and trust in God."

"The lyrics," he said, "allow for joyful expression while the driving beat permits the expression of loss and sorrow all at the same time."

When listening or singing to the St. Louis Jesuits music, the transition of meaning is also apparent.

"Be Not Afraid," written by Dufford, is one piece that has seen many people through difficult times in their lives. Dufford said it was not originally a song for funerals.

"I never thought of it as a funeral song," he said. "It’s a song of transition." Linda Hayek of Omaha finds the song reassuring.

"‘Be Not Afraid’ was the song I remember at Masswhen my husband, Dave, and I returned from his critical cancer surgery in Boston," she said. "I wasn’t Catholic yet, and it was the first time I had sung it."

"Of course, I cried because it resonated with my whole life at the time," she added. "As the years have gone on, I’ve come to associate it with many events, including Dave’s funeral. It has been an enormous comfort every time. The times change, but the message that we can live abundantly in all circumstances - without being afraid - is eternal," said Hayek. "The meaning goes deeper the more I live, simply because I have more examples to relate to."

Sandi Cardillo of Omaha believes that the movements of the Spirit in the Church coincided well with the time the St. Louis Jesuits’ music was composed and introduced.

"I think for so many of our generation to be part of such a strong movement in the Church at such an influential time in our lives is why we cling to the music of the St. Louis Jesuits," she said.

She described the impact the St. Louis Jesuits had on her in terms of the impression left on her by some of the folk singers of that era.

"Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, Carole King, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver and the St. Louis Jesuits are all part of the same time in my life for me. The call to justice, peace and love is alive in the music," said Cardillo.

Is it fair to compare The Beatles revolutionizing pop music in the ‘60s with the St. Louis Jesuits and liturgical music in the ‘70s? The analogy is sound, but O’Conner quickly dismissed the comparison saying, "The Beatles changed Western culture!"

It seems that it is more that the Church and the talents of men in her ministry merged at the right time to make a lasting impact. After Vatican II there was an openness and acceptance that made the strides of the St. Louis Jesuits possible and welcome.

"We just happened to be born at a time that allowed us to do what we did," O’Connor said. "We truly sought to translate the best of what we knew before the Council into ways of people praying after the Council. That was all fostered by the renewal of both the studies in and practice of giving the Spiritual Exercises. So, I guess that became revolutionary."

Like wonderful memories, the music of the St. Louis Jesuits is holding fast and still impacting lives today.

back