My daughter Laura turned me on to the British band Mumford and Sons. They’re something special. “After the Storm” speaks of longing for God, and the hope that love will triumph: And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears. And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears. Get [...]
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Some time ago I featured the Natalie Merchant song “Wonder” in our occasional “Best Ignatian Songs” feature. Here is another. It’s a setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child.” The song is in the middle of a concert Merchant gave at a TED conference. Go to the 16 minute, [...]
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This is the second time “Gabriel’s Oboe” has appeared in our occasional “Best Ignatian Songs” feature. (The first time is here.) The occasion is the opening of a musical based on the movie “The Mission,” a great film inspired by the Jesuit missions in South America in the eighteenth century. The musical opened this week [...]
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Years ago, I gave up on Advent. It was hard to maintain the Advent frame of mind (quiet longing for the coming of Christ) in the midst of the Christmas tumult, which seems to get started around Columbus Day. I remember listening to a priest one Sunday urging us to take Advent seriously by waiting [...]
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Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It’s the feast day of my parish, St. Mary Student Parish in Ann Arbor, which serves the University of Michigan Catholic community. (Jesuits run the place.) To mark the feast, listen to a hymn that’s considered one of the loveliest in the corpus of sacred [...]
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A friend of mine, whose son was born with Down Syndrome, turned me on to Natalie Merchant’s song “Wonder.” I think it’s a song especially about disabled children, but it applies to all children. Maybe that’s why it came to mind today, when my wife and I are in New York visiting two of my [...]
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John Predmore, SJ, says that Jim Croce’s classic ballad “I Got a Name” “best reflects the events in my life that have led me to trust more fully in God.” He says that the lyrics extol Ignatian freedom. And I’m gonna go there free Like the fool I am and I’ll always be I’ve got [...]
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Paul Campbell, SJ, talks about his personal prayer practices. (“The most important thing I do is to see a spiritual director.”) Jim Martin, SJ, on sexual abuse and the Sacred Heart. How the St. Louis Jesuits changed liturgical music. (“One person credits them with wrecking the liturgy and the next person credits them with saving [...]
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The Best Ignatian Song feature of this blog has been on the shelf for some months. I’ve dusted it off to feature the “String Quartet No. 1: Good Friday Meditation” by Andrew Leonard, a recent Boston College graduate who is spending the summer with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Leonard, a pre-med and music major, says [...]
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“Jesus ahatonhia,” our last Christmas song of the season, is probably the first Christmas carol written in North America. The title means “Jesus, he is born” in the language of the Huron/Wendat native people of Canada. The Jesuit martyr St. Jean de Brébeuf wrote the song in that language. It is a good example of [...]
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