These are some of John Michael Talbot's most requested songs, his 'signature' songs. All have been re-recorded with John Michael, along with the Sinfonia of London orchestra and the St. Michael's Singers from Coventry Cathedral in England.

The opening of any musical worship is most important. At the beginning of the monastic daily prayer service we say, “ O God, come to my assistance. O Lord make haste to help me.” These songs do the same. We begin by focusing on Jesus as the beginning and the end of all that we do. We let go of ourselves and we realize that God alone is sufficient for whatever we may face in life, and specifically on this particular day. We respond the invitation to worship and call on the power of the Holy Spirit.

These opening songs set a tone, and begin us on the spiritual and artistic journey of the entire collection. This first group of songs has been used individually or together to call forth and facilitate that spiritual reality in my concerts, and seem to work well. Only Lilies is usually used during the Jesus section further on. But we thought it worked nicely here to begin this 25 years of Catholic Christian music collection.

Lilies of the Field

The orchestral introduction of this piece sets the tone of the rest of the recording. The song is old, but new. It brings back the lush memories of the Troubadour of the Great King recordings, during our first London recording where we really, “got it right.” This recording hearkens back to that original, but the addition of the choir makes it unique and special. The London orchestral sound is unmistakable on this recording, just as it was on the original.

I have used this song consistently for 25 years in my concert repertoire. Based on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which is the heart of His gospel, it has a most charming way of touching the listener with the beautiful aspect of gospel simplicity, which alone can be very challenging to the average Christian who finds oneself being reared in a very consumeristic western society. When only preached, this message can put off the hearer. When sung it almost irresistibly beckons.

As Catholic Christians Jesus is the beginning, the center, and the end of all in our faith, so it is appropriate to begin with this song. For the Catholic Christian, all doctrine, sacrament, and Church structure are centered on this reality of a personal love relationship with Jesus as a united people. Anything that does not hinge on this core reality is vain, or fruitless, religion. This song, Lilies of the Field, has a way of focusing clearly, yet gently, on this central aspect of the Catholic Christian faith.

One Faith

When touring with other artists, or a larger chamber group I often use this song towards the beginning of the concert, or at the opening of the second half. It is a good gathering song, and upbeat enough to get everyone’s attention. Though usually placed in a Roman Catholic church or facility, the audience is often filled with believers from different Christian denominations and religious faiths. This song calls us all to gather together in the unity that of God that Jesus can bring.

But there is more. We gather as one common people, though we are all individually unique. This balance of community and each individual is called “individuation.” It is different from “ individualism.” Individuation reverences the individual so that all life is reverences and seen as an interdependent whole. Individualism makes a god of the self, and rolls over anything that gets in the way of self-indulgence and ego. One is positive, and the other is negative.

For the Christian this begins with finding Jesus in all people. St. Bonaventure taught that we can find God’s traces in all creation, His image in human beings in a special way, and His Body in the Church. He says that the human soul is like a mirror created to reflect God’s beautiful image in a unique way. It may be covered over by dirt through years of sin, but down deep in all human beings is the image of God just waiting to be discovered again. We see this reality in everyone we meet. This enables us to treat everyone and everything with great reverence and care.

But Christians themselves must be reunited. We have been divided and dispersed through our own arrogance and sin. But God now calls us back to our original homeland in Christ in a developed way. This is the New Testament regathering. As a Catholic I humbly see the Catholic Church as holding the unique means to house all Christians, should they ever seek this unity once more. But I also see that the Church herself accommodates those who come from other faith traditions. She does this through appropriate changes in the many non-essentials in structure or devotion in order to house this Christ centered unity. She also does so through appropriate repentance for the many areas where we have sinned in ages past, and forgiveness where others have sinned against us.

Come Worship the Lord (Ps 95)

This song was written in my first hand built hermitage at Alverna Retreat Center in Indianapolis Indiana during my first year as a Catholic Christian, and a Secular Franciscan, before starting the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. It was written in solitude, but is one of the most requested song for public worship at Liturgy and other occasions for public prayer. I included it on the Come to the Quiet collection, which has proven to be one of the most popular among my other recordings. I must say that it caught on in a way that I could never foresee or manipulate.

But solitude and quiet cannot be an escape from the more external and active aspects of our life. Solitude cannot be an escape from the responsibilities of community, and community cannot be an escape from the naked encounter with God in solitude. I now use Come Worship the Lord in concert to engage the audience in a way of worship that includes their whole being, body, soul, and spirit, and not just a part of their being. There are gestures with this song that are easily comfortable for most in the audience. After this we seem more ready to really go into the deeper places of our spiritual being before God in the more quiet songs.

God Alone

Through the years I have found wonderful texts in the prayers of the great saints of the Catholic Christian tradition. This one comes from St. Theresa of Avila, the 16th century Spanish mystic, and founder of the Theresian reform of the Carmelite family of friars, sisters and nuns, and seculars. For me the simplicity of the prayer speaks for itself. We often make false gods of the secular things of our life, and even of the religious things when used wrongly. The First Commandment tells us to have no gods before Him. This song calls us to that most challenging reality. Though written in recent years, and recorded for the Simple Heart collection, it has caught on as a favorite in concert, and for myself as I have the privilege of singing it night after night.

This musical setting of this prayer also calls us to the spiritual reality of detachment, or what we Christians call gospel poverty. This detachment teaches us to use all things rightly, and to find the greatest wealth in such poverty, and the grasp of the most composite of creation in such simplicity. It is a simply song that opens the way for whatever God wants to do with each of us through this listening prayer experience.

In concert I use this song towards the beginning of the evening to ask everyone to let go of all preconceptions, all distractions, and all attachments of any kind so that God can do whatever He wants with all of us. In concert I ask the congregation to sit straight with both feet flat on the floor, but relaxed and comfortably, to let go of anything that they are grasping, and to open their hands on their laps. This symbolizes a great spiritual truth. We must let go of everything so that God can do whatever He wants. Then I sing as they meditate. This song works wonderfully in ushering in that reality for those of us gathered for musical prayer.

Veni Sancte Spiritus

This song was written along with a Veni Creator Spiritus (Come Creator Spirit). The Creator Spiritus was recorded long ago on the Meditations in the Spirit collection, but has yet to make it onto a collection. Perhaps this will come later? For many years I opened concerts with the Veni Sancte Spiritus. It has now been sung by hundreds of thousands as they entered into musical worship. I have vivid memories of individual congregations as they sang with me. I have used it at the beginning of concerts because, as scripture and tradition teach us, any religious act, no matter how correct on an external level, falls short of the real reason for the act without the gift of the Spirit of God. It is a great way to begin a sacred music concert. For this reason this song is very special to me.

Magnificat, Holy Is His Name

This is a setting of the much loved Magnificat prayer of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. In ancient Church teaching Mary is seen as a figure of the Holy Spirit, because she was overshadowed by the Spirit to conceive and give birth to Jesus, born of God and humanity in perfect balance. The song works well here after the Veni Sancte Spiritus.

This and Come Worship the Lord are perhaps the two most remembered of my body of work. It remains an irony to me that a song that has brought contemplative peace to millions was actually written at the rather noisy breakfast table of a family who are friends of mine. Amidst the pancakes, butter, and syrup, God gave me the text and melody of this song. I finished it up in the hermitage at Alverna. It has always stood out for me as a harmony of the active and the contemplative part of our faith. The active seeks the rest of the contemplative, and the contemplative seeks the expression of the active. Both are unique, but ultimately need the other for wholeness. In the Church herself, the contemplative communities are the spiritual power behind the active and the apostolic, and the latter give expression to the former, making the Church herself a complete whole in Christ.

Holy Is His Name has also been a song to remind us all of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She stands as a model and a mother of faith for all believers everywhere. She dared to believe the spiritual reality that the world would say is impossible, and so gave birth to Jesus, who brings salvation to the entire world. During concerts I suggest that we all think back on the last time God gave us a message so beautiful, wonderful, and true. But unlike Mary, we often turn back to the divine messenger and say; “ God would never do that with me.” So God waits for another opportunity. At each concert, and with your hearing of the song on this recording, we have another opportunity to turn from our human doubt to a divine faith. When we dare to do this we help give birth to Jesus afresh in our own day and time beginning with our own life, and reaching out to everyone we meet. This song honors Mary, but if Mary is important, it is only because Jesus is more important. If we venerate her, we worship her Son, Jesus Christ the Lord.

She is also seen as a most perfect model for all that came before in the Old Testament, fulfilling the Old while bridging a pathway to the New Testament She is a good bridge to this next group of songs as well.

THE PSALMS

The psalms hold a special place in Christian worship. They were included throughout the day in the monastic movement. Monks came to pray all 150 psalms every day in public, and another 150 psalms in private. Today we have emphasized quality more than quantity, and pray the Psalter communally, without the most violent psalms, every four weeks. The Psalms cover a broad spectrum of emotion in our encounter with God in the sometimes-harsh realities of daily life. The monastic and Church Fathers teach us to pray the more aggressively warlike psalms as metaphors for our own personal spiritual warfare. Since so many go through these spiritual battles as a normal part of spiritual life I always include them in concerts. In this way they are most effective.

Hiding Place

While not called to use solitude and silence as an unhealthy escape from reality, we are called to find God as a refuge in time of trouble. This is the title song for the collection bearing the same name. Written in a time of trial for me, this song has brought many to great comfort during their own times of trial and spiritual testing. Recorded for a small group during an almost rushed recording in the late eighties, it is good to give it a more serious treatment with a larger orchestra and choir on this collection. I find many most interesting changes in this arrangement.

Only in God (Ps 62)

Included in the Come to the Quiet collection this song has proven to be a favorite over the years. As only one of scores of Psalms I have pout to music I have been pleasantly surprised to find it showing up in songbooks for Mass. It is also one of my favorites. It is good to include the choir for a somewhat more legitimate treatment here. Thematically, it continues the journey of refuge in God and God alone in the midst of the many false gods, and very real trials of our modern life. Singing it in almost every concert for twenty-five years has brought a new confidence to the performance that had not yet developed in the original.

Simple Heart

This is the title song from the collection with the same name. I have not used this song in concert as much as the others in this collection, but it has always been most welcomed by audiences when I have done so. This was especially true during the Simple Heart Tour with my older brother Terry, and his comrade in song Barry, in Talbot and McGuire. It is easy to sing, and speaks a message to all of us found sometimes confused by the complications of modern life. We are all called to a divine simplicity that can make sense of the complexities of life. We are not, however, called to be simplistic. Likewise we are called to be childlike, but not childish. It is good to remember that the core of our Faith is really very simple, as is the spiritual reality within us all.

JESUS

The heart of the Christian faith is Jesus. He is the center, the beginning and the end of all that we are about as individuals and as a people. While the other songs emphasize the work of God in the formal revelation of the Old Testament, and in the general inspiration found in other major religions of the world, Jesus fulfills all that is good, holy, and true in them all. In this He complements what has come before, and He also completes it. He does so not in a militant or self-righteous spirituality, but by simply BEING the paradox of completing all through a meek and humble heart that finds fullness of self awareness in self-emptying, proclamation through graceful silence, glory through lowliness, and the abundance of new spiritual life in dying on the cross. Because of this God the Father has raised Him up in the power of the Holy Spirit as a positive and peaceful way, truth, and life for all peoples everywhere. These songs always form the heart of my repertoire, and are the high point for me in every concert.

Advent Suite

This is a special song on my repertoire. It was first written during my Evangelical to Catholic transition period, recorded on The Painter with the Talbot Brothers, and again on Brother to Brother with Mike Card. This is the first time to record it on my own, though I wrote it as a JMT song. Its treatment on this project is unique. After recording it with numerous background vocals (similar to the much beloved Painter version), we ended up using only the basic harmony stack of a top third and lower fifth, leaving the melody solo. We also decided not to add choir, as on the other songs on this collection. With an adapted Phil Perkins version of the Lee Holdrege orchestration the song takes on a new and almost primitive power. It retains something of the former Talbot Brother and Brother to Brother treatments, but has become something unique. I kind of like it, and hope that the listener will as well.

Thematically, it emphasizes the incarnational (or “in flesh,” or “meat”) reality of the historical Jesus, which is so much the soul of authentic Catholic Christianity. This is really the message of all the mystics and saints of a more ancient Christian history than is often portrayed in more modern western Christianity. It was a natural result of my transition to the Catholic Church. I believe this, and other such songs are so well received due to the ineffable longing for this spirituality by people of every denomination and faith.

Healer of My Soul

Used first in the Celtic excursion of the God of Life project, this text comes from a 9th century Irish prayer. Used frequently in concert, this ancient song ushers us into the timeless healing ministry of Jesus today. When He walked this earth, Jesus was a healer. He heals us through our ordained ministers and sacraments, but He also heals us through the prayer of all His faithful praying for anyone in most need of His mercy.

In concert I ask everyone to sit straight but comfortable, to open their hands resting on their laps, and to open themselves to any healing they might need at that special time. It could be an illness, disease, or injury, or maybe a negative habit pattern of our physical self. It could be emotional in the all to frequent whirlwind of our passions. When the passions are so agitated they often confuse our minds and make it almost impossible to discern the will of God. So it could be mental in the disorder or negativity of our thoughts. Healer of My Soul has been the musical media God uses to bring countless people His healing by simply letting go of any area of our life where we most need the Lord’s healing and mercy.

Bread of Life

Included on the first Songs For Worship collection right after Troubadour, this setting of John 6 has found its way into many Eucharistic Liturgies, and into one of the more used songs in my concert repertoire. I am always reminded of the daily and weekly alter call Catholics and other Orthodox, and high-church Christian expressions experience at every Eucharist, Mass and Communion Service. We usually think of alter calls as the exclusive ministry tool of Evangelical Christians. But Catholics, Orthodox, and high churches experience this every time we gather for Liturgy and come forward for Communion. Here Jesus gives Himself fully to and for us in a sacramental way. We are called to come forward and give ourselves fully to Him as His disciples

But sacrament also means mystery. There is an essential aspect to our faith in Jesus that is beyond all words. It builds on the perceptible through sense, emotion, and mind, but must jump beyond the knowable to that which is only known through Mystery. This is because divine BEING and divine Love are beyond our full human understanding. This ultimate reality remains always in the realm of mystery. Jesus goes beyond preaching the mystery. He simply IS the Mystery, as the way, the truth, and the life who complements and completes all that came before, and pointed to this central reality of all the cosmos. Now, as He is present in a way beyond our full comprehension in the Eucharist, this Mystery simply IS for all who receive, either in fact or by desire. Every Liturgy is a journey through body and soul to spirit. The senses are stirred through sacred art. The emotions are stirred through art and word. The mind is stirred through the Liturgy of the Word. Then we are fully prepared for that journey into the Mystery of Christ, the New Testament holy of holies. As you hear this song think of your last Communion. If it was not this reality for you, make a commitment to make your next Communion with mindfulness of this realty.

I Abandon Myself

This song is from the Simple Heart collection. I use it at the end of my concerts as a song of reassurance that is we fully surrender in faith, God is always there to accomplish His will in and through us in ways beyond what we can possible expect or imagine. It is the prayer of Blessed Charles De Foucault, who went to the deserts of northern Africa in the 20th century to preach the gospel of Jesus, and to found a community of hermits who preached by simply living as a prayer among the people. But not one person was converted to Christianity, and not one person joined him in his new community. Some thieves who robbed his hermitage in hopes of finding riches killed him when they found nothing but a few books and a place of prayer. Some would say that his life was a waste. But years later his community was actually founded by someone who “accidentally” found his journal beneath the desert. Today thousands have come to the way of Jesus through their ministry. Sometimes we also feel that we are wasting our time and our lives in our ministries. We do so much hard work in ministry, but so few in the west respond to an authentic Christian call. This Abandonment Prayer of Blessed Charles de Foucault stands as an encouragement to us all. It is an honor to pout it to music.

Surrender to Jesus/ St. Theresa’s Prayer

This medley is taken from my concert treatment of these separate songs. The first, taken from the Surrender prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola, calls us all to fully surrender to Jesus. This does not bring us to real defeat, but to the victory of Jesus in our life, which He shares freely with us all. Many in concert experience this wonderful grace for the first time, or for the first time in a long time.

The second song of the medley calls us to remember that if we surrender to Jesus we must also learn how to surrender to people. In concert I ask everyone to join hands and to enter into a little meditation as I sing. Through this meditation we learn how to find Jesus in everyone we meet, not only when they are acting most like Him, but also even when they are not. Whether the other person sees this or not, we see it as the presence of Jesus within all people created in the image of God. Our very life begins to call forth the wonderful reality of God that can bring a unity of spirit to a world terribly divided on the level of ideology, class, and race. Only then do we have the freedom to give Him as He gave Himself, without any condemnation or judgment, as an act of pure, divine love.

This is the core reality of Church. It is here that we learn the way of divine love that unites where once there was division between peoples. It is by experiencing this reality that we have any authority to proclaim Jesus as the way of fulfillment and peace to an empty and warring world.

CONCLUSION

Because You Are Chosen

First recorded for Heart of the Shepherd, I often use this song at the end of my concerts, after previous ones calling us to greater commitment to self-emptying as disciples of Jesus. After those songs calling forth radical surrender of self and unity between all people in Christ, we often need the further reassurance of our most special calling as people of God. As Jesus says, we find our true self by losing ourselves in Him. It is good to know that God loves us, and chooses each one of us in a most personal and intimate way. He can give what no other human person or material object can give. He can change us back into the beautiful person that we were originally created to be. All the years of selfishness and sin can pass away in a single act of responding to His love and call. Taken from the more beautiful words of St. Paul, this song hopefully accomplishes that end, and sends us forth with the full assurance that God loves us, and we are chosen and called to a wonderful and most holy way of life in Christ.

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