One of the loveliest pieces of sacred music that I know is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rendition of “Pie Jesu.” “Pie Jesu” means “Kind Jesus,” and the Latin text calls on “the Lamb of God” to show mercy to his people. It’s here because mercy is at the heart of Ignatian spirituality. The text has an [...]
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It’s back to Bob Dylan for this week’s Ignatian song. It’s “Every Grain of Sand,” one of Dylan’s many songs with powerful Biblical imagery. The beauty of this song is in the lyrics. They depict a man choked by “the flowers of indulgence,” trying to resist “temptation’s angry flame,” sensing God’s presence Like Cain, I [...]
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Responding to God’s invitation is a core idea of Ignatian spirituality. We give because we have received. The sublime expression of this is Ignatius’ “Suscipe.” Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, [...]
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Ruth Sherer Leacock is a songwriter and musician who wrote many songs as a way to preserve her experience of the Spiritual Exercises. She says, “Set it to music, I’ll remember it. The emotional power of the melodies coupled with the rhyme and rhythm of descriptive lyrics was an easy way to recall the fundamentals [...]
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One of my favorite movies is “The Mission,” a film inspired by the Jesuit missions in South America in the eighteenth century. One of the many memorable features of this movie is the splendid soundtrack by the Italian composer Ennio Morricone. The scene below shows a Jesuit, played by Jeremy Irons, making contact with Indians [...]
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This week’s Ignatian song is the hard rock classic “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi. It’s about a working class couple “livin’ on a prayer” as they struggle to make ends meet. Lyrics here. But it’s this performance rather than the lyrics that makes this song an Ignatian classic. These are Jesuits on the [...]
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This week’s song selection is “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead. It was recommended by John Montag, SJ, who wrote on the Ignatian Spirituality Facebook page that the chorus of the song aptly describes “consolation without cause.” “Consolation without cause” is a sense of peace and joy that suddenly appears without a reason. Most of our [...]
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“Some people pray, some people play music,” Bruce Springsteen once said, but it’s pretty obvious that Bruce prays with much of the music he makes. He went to St. Rose of Lima Elementary School in Freehold, New Jersey. Catholic imagery often appears in his music. One critic calls him the greatest Catholic poet of our [...]
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Our Ignatian song this week is “Morning Has Broken,” a lovely song of thanks for creation: Morning has broken like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird. Praise for the singing, Praise for the morning, Praise for them springing fresh from the world. It sings of gratitude, the spirit of the Ignatian [...]
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