Of the 2,422 people with tickets for the sold-out final concert by the St Louis Jesuits, it is likely that Donna Benton is the only one who brought along the program from her wedding Mass.
Standing in the midst of the cream-and-gold walls and red velvet curtains of Powell Hall in St Louis, she pointed to the pink text spelling out the name of the hymn she walked down the aisle to on Dec. 20, 1980: “Emanuel,” by Tim Manion, who, along with Dan Schutte, Robert O’Connor, S.J. (known as Roc), Bob Dufford, S.J., and John Foley, S.J., revolutionised liturgical music in the early 1970s.
Benton says her husband, Doug, who recently died, loved to play the songs of the St Louis Jesuits.
She tears up remembering the way the music always pointed the couple to something larger than themselves.
“‘Emanuel, God With Us,’ was the theme not just of our wedding, but our marriage and our lives,” Benton said, adding she was thrilled that “Emanuel” is on the setlist for the show.
At 3 p.m. on Sept. 29, the five men took the stage as the St Louis Jesuits for the last time and, after being met with a standing ovation, gave a three-hour performance billed as the official conclusion to a collaboration that began nearly 50 years earlier, while they were Jesuit scholastics in St Louis.
The group’s accessible and original music, now collected on 35 albums, became a catalyst for many a guitar Mass and remains a Sunday staple in many parishes.
“Someone once said to me that the St Louis Jesuits wrote the spiritual soundtrack to our lives,” said John Limb, former publisher of Oregon Catholic Press, the publisher of the St Louis Jesuits. “For those of us of a certain age, that was true.”
The concert, called Coming Home: A Final Celebration, was a return of sorts, not just for the musicians, but for their fans.
One group of women religious, former women religious and former Jesuits—all students at St Louis University in the late 1960s—reunited in the lobby of the theater to laugh and reminisce.
They had attended Mass together at St. Francis Xavier College Church in the Chapel of Our Lady on the church’s lower level, where the St Louis Jesuits began their career and where these friends had been a part of the phenomenon from the start.
“[The St. Louis Jesuits] started writing much more rich and serious music,” Greg Christoffer said, adding that he still has the original “ditto masters” used to first distribute the group’s music.
“It was controversial to use guitar and piano,” said John Niemann, who came from Denver with a friend, Carol Lewis, for the show.
“It took time, but they became a real changing force in the church.”
“I had to come just for the memories,” Lewis added.
“[The St. Louis Jesuits] made a difference.
“They made the church so much more relevant to those of us who were young at the time.”
“They were articulating our greatest hopes of Vatican II,” said Sister Barbara Franklin, a member of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ who traveled from Redbud, Ill.
“I think they also made us more aware of what Catholic social teaching was with their music. They reminded us to remember other people.”
While so-called Vatican II Catholics made up the majority of the crowd, there were some enthusiastic faces from younger generations, as well.
Jennifer Cashin came from Northwood, Ohio, with her daughter Abigail, 17, and Adam, 15, to attend the concert.
Cashin and her daughter are both in the choir at their parish, and their entire family shares a love of the St. Louis Jesuits.
“We find great comfort in their music,” Abigail said, adding that it reminds her that “the Lord’s love is everlasting and he will always be there for us.” Continue reading