Top Catholic Songs – share, learn, promote

The refrain of this chant is gleamed from the Divine Mercy and Divine Will devotions. It is a good ejaculatory prayer to recite during the day. Ejaculatory prayers are also known as aspirations.  At times ejaculatory prayers are more effective than long prayers because they are a concentration of many knocks into one. 

REFRAIN
Jesus, I trust in you - Your kingdom come
I give you my will - Please give me yours - to live in

In this psalm of lamentation, the person cries out to God from his heart for mercy and help in his time of inner darkness and the desolation all around him.  He asks God not to enter into judgment with him as he admits his sins and weakness.  We can hear a Palestinian Christian in Gaza today, whose wife and children have been killed in bombings and has lost his home, village, and livelihood, cry out to God for mercy as he wanders hungry and in danger with his fellow refugees. This psalm could be a cry to God for help from a poor and pregnant young woman who has been rejected by her parents and recently by her boyfriend and others.

Father thank you for inspiring us
To sing with hearts full of praise and love
as  you delight in our songs of praise
As to you our hearts you raise

You’ve blessed us with the gift of song
 To  express our deepest  love for you

All creation groans in labor pains,
And longs to be set free
From its cycle of futility
By God’s promise, it will be

We also groan within ourselves
As we await that glorious day

An. O God you are my God, for you my soul is thirsting

O God, hear my cry!
Listen to my prayer!
From the end of the earth, I call my heart is faint.

On the rock too high for me to reach set me on high,
O you who have been my refuge,
my tower against the foe.

Let me dwell in your tent forever
and hide in the shelter of your wings.
For you, O God, hear my prayer,
grant me the heritage of those who fear you

O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you, my soul is thirsting
My body pines for you

like a dry, weary land without water. So I gaze on you in the sanctuary

to see your strength and your glory.

1 You carried your cross for us each day Teaching us the sacrificial way
Doing God’s will with filial love Inviting us all to follow you

2 Father of Love you save and feed us Through and with your Son divine
He is our Lord. who always defends us From subtle Pride and the evil one

REFRAIN
Dear Lord help us
To persevere to follow thee
In dying with me I’ll set you free

To live forever with the Father and me In resplendent joy and divine ecstasy

3 Through Him and with Him and in Him in the Love of the Holy Spirit
we give you all praise dear Father
with all the angels and saints in heaven

    We sing to you O Lord /  who reigns above
     By the power of / your divine love
    
     Keep me safe, O God ,
     for in you I take refuge.
  

REFRAIN
On the throne, with God our Father,
We have a pure and great high priest
His son divine and our holy brother

Whoever lives and for us interceeds
He knows each one of us and our needs

1 Our name is written on His heart
We know that while in heaven He reigns
We can praise Him with our humble song
Joining the angels in heavenly praise

2 Behold Him there, the risen Lamb
Our perfect, spotless righteousness
The Holy One the great I am
The King of glory and of all grace

RRFRAIN
3 Our life is hid with Christ on high

With Christ, our Savior, and our God behold he comes in all his glory
To bring us home to God our Father

REFRAIN
1 Author of holy desires,

who gives to all who live by faith the Spirit of your sevenfold grace, with kindness come to help us all

2 The spirit of fear of the Lord the filial fear of God our Father

reverence for his holy Will
& his love divine for each of us

3 Spirit of piety who inspires us to love to pray and worship God

Spirit of fortitude and of strength to persevere to the end REFRAIN

4 Spirit 0f knowledge to evaluate all things as gifts from God our Father

spirit of understanding truths of Faith revealed by God our Father

 

5 Spirit of counsel to act rightly Doing what must be done daiy The spirit of Wisdom that perfects

 
1 At the name of Jesus                                   4  Bore it up triumphant
 

1  You are our source and final end,
the font from which creation flows;
true peace dwells in you alone,
firm hope for all believing hearts

2 The time is growing short

As we travel through the desert
Storms beset us on our way
But beyond the River Jordan
Lies a field of endless days
Refrain 1

To this timeless eighteenth hymn, various verses have been added.  I added two strophes that reflect the contemporary problems we face.
         
1 My life flows on in endless song,
All through Earth’s lamentation   
I catch his sweet, though far-off voice       
that hails the new creation.

2 When nations wage their high-tech wars

REFRAIN
O Christ, your friends humbly pray:
Increase your light/in these dark days
let not evil’s subtle ways
Deceive us or leed us a stray

RRFRAIN
MY loving king and shepherd
Your goodness fails me never
I nothing lack if I am yours
And you are mine forever.

Proud  and foolish I once strayed,
But you with love  sought me,
And on your shoulder gently laid,
And home rejoicing brought me.

Where streams of living water flow,        
To rest my soul you lead me;
Where fresh and fertile pastures grow,
With heav’nly food you feed me.
REFRAIN

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill,
With you, dear Lord, beside me;
Your rod and staff my comfort still,
Your cross will ever guide me.

You spread a banquet in my sight,
My head with oil anointing,
And let me taste the sweet delight
From your pure chalice flowing.
REFRAIN

Loving shepherd, ever near
Teach me now, thy voice to hear
Suffer not my steps to stray
From the straight and narrow way

And so through all my length of days
Your goodness fails me never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing your praise
Within your house forever.
REFRAIN

And so through all my length of days
Your goodness fails me never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing your praise
Within your house forever.

 adapted from Henry Williams Baker’s (1821-1877)
hymn: The King of Love My Sheperd Is
Music arrangement by Ronald St. Martin