Dan Schutte, Tim Manion and Jesuit Fathers Bob Dufford, John Foley and Roc O'Connor were St. Louis Jesuits before they were "the" St. Louis Jesuits who created a new kind of Scripture-based contemporary music for use at Mass.

Manion left the Jesuits before ordination, and ultimately quit composing music. Schutte left the Society of Jesus, and the ordained priesthood, in 1986 -- the year after their sixth, and presumably last, music collection, "The Steadfast Love," had been released.

But a series of e-mail conversations among the men starting in 2003 resulted in a reunion in a recording studio in Portland, Ore., last year. Even Manion came for a few days to add guitar and vocals to a new collection, "Morning Light."

"It was an amazing experience.... It was like magic," Schutte said as he and his Jesuit-priest colleagues were jointly interviewed in Washington by Catholic News Service. "It's like we were whole again." Their Feb. 18 concert in Washington was one of five reunion appearances the group planned for 2006.

Before they were "the" St. Louis Jesuits, the first collection, a four-LP set titled "Neither Silver Nor Gold," was billed as "liturgical music by St. Louis Jesuits," created partly in response to requests they received for copies of their music. Schutte recalled spending his free time that year writing the musical notation by hand for each of the set's 57 songs for a companion songbook.

Based on musical activity in St. Louis the early 1970s, "there could have been eight or 10 of us," Father Dufford said. "I couldn't tell you how it would all shake out," added Father O'Connor. Among those early Jesuits were Father John Kavanaugh, now a philosophy professor and writer on ethics and spirituality, and Father J-Glenn Murray, a recognized expert on African-American spirituality.

Subsequent albums --- "Earthen Vessels," "A Dwelling Place," the Christmas-themed "Gentle Night," "Lord of Light" and "The Steadfast Love" --- reinforced the group's standing, and hymnals featured more and more of their music and parish congregations sang more of it.

Some have compared the St. Louis Jesuits to the Beatles. Father O'Connor said the comparison may be valid in terms of each bringing a fresh perspective on their chosen musical genre, but otherwise the analogy "limps majorly."

But just like the "Paul is dead" hoax that surprised Beatles fans in 1969, "John is dead" rumors spread about Father Foley.

"I was dead, or I had gone blind due to diabetes, or I had slammed a metal door on my finger and I couldn't ever play guitar again, or I had cancer," Father Foley recalled. He remembered helping one fellow Jesuit unpack his trunk. "He turned to me and said, 'How long have you got?' I said, 'Really, none of us know.'"

In the CNS interview, they spoke at length about the songwriting and recording process.

While they wrote separately, "we came together in the summers" to record, Father Foley said. When they recorded the Christmas album "Gentle Night" in Phoenix, "it was 118 degrees outside," he added. "We went inside the air-conditioned studio and lit candles."

Ray Bruno, head of North American Liturgy Resources and producer of their first albums, wanted to do "crossover" music -- songs that would be well-received by not only liturgical musicians but fans of inspirational and pop music, according to Father Foley.

After the success of "Neither Silver Nor Gold" --- an unlikely feat for a four-LP set by hitherto unknown musicians retailing for $19.95 in 1974 dollars --- Bruno wanted the next album, "Earthen Vessels," to be done "in a real studio, with real instruments and real arrangements, and we said no," Father Foley said. They brokered a compromise by which the Jesuits would record the basic tracks, around which more lavish arrangements could be written and recorded.

During those summers, they also would critique each other's music.

"That was a bloody process," Father Dufford said. "Here you've got five guys who are used to doing things individually, and here you've got guys who are saying things about my blood and sinew (the songs) that's out there. It hurts! It took a while for me to learn, to trust that the others were on my side."

Ignatian spirituality is in part of their songs. "That's where our music grew from," Schutte said.

Father Dufford said Ignatian spirituality is "built around getting to know the person of Jesus, doing that through contemplation of the Scriptures. Our prayer was so Scripture-based right from the very beginning, when we began to think of how to write songs that might help other people to pray, the first place we looked to was the Scripture."

Father Foley said their songs should be "shipworthy." "They ought to be able to go into other musical minds and prayerful minds and still float," he said, adding he has heard a "wonderful" reggae arrangement of "One Bread, One Body" and an "electrifying" version of "The Cry of the Poor" that was "light years away from the way we did it."

They said many musicians are afraid to play their songs at Mass if one of them is the celebrant, but they themselves love to consult the works of other composers.

Father Foley said today there are "175 active composers" --- at least five times the number when they started --- whose work is being published. Among their favorites are Marty Haugen, David Haas, Father Michael Joncas, Christopher Walker, Bernadette Farrell, Jaime Cortez and the Taize ecumenical community in France.

---CNS