All I Ask of You (AOV 1/150)

This song sounds very seventies from the perspective of lyrics.  Writen by Gregory Norbet in the seventies when he was still a monk, there is something vaguely disturbing about a line ” and for me that’s just where it is”. We’ve sung it a lot and I suppose in fifty years it will be a shining example of the best of mid twentieth century hymnody.

You could just use the refrain as a mantra and in that form it has been combined with what I think is a sufi chant.

You can hear a vocal and keyboard version here.

Chorus

All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you.

Verse 1

Deep the joy of being together in one heart
and for me that’s just where it is.

Chorus

Verse 2

As we make our way through all the joys and pain,
can we sense our younger, truer selves?

Chorus

Verse 3

Someone will be calling you to be there for a while.
Can you hear their cry from deep within?

Chorus

Verse 4

Laughter, joy and presence: the only gifts you are!
Have you time? I’d like to be with you.

Chorus

Verse 5

Persons come into the fiber of our lives,
and then their shadows fade and disappear.

Chorus

Forever as loving you.

Copyright © 1973
The Benedictine Foundation of the State of Vermont, Inc.,
Weston Priory, Weston, Vermont.

www.westonpriory.org

 

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10 Responses to All I Ask of You (AOV 1/150)

  1. Jillian Patane says:

    I love listening to this music. So uplifting.

  2. JIJI BENNY says:

    Good tune

  3. Jennifer Keyen says:

    I’ve loved this song since the first time I heard it being sung. At the age of 14 I told all my friends and mum that if they’re alive when I pass, I want it sung at my funeral.

  4. Olyvin says:

    One of my favourite hymn.

  5. eddie says:

    as the organist for my church, I wish I can purchase the sheet music for this song.

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  7. Kathleen Belton says:

    Just beautiful. I would love to purchase All I ask if you. If anyone has information on I might go about doing so I would really appreciate it.

    Thank you!
    Kathy

  8. Kate Bradley says:

    I’d never heard this hymn before today at Mass (and I’m a cradle Catholic now in my 40s), and it is the worst, creepiest, cringiest psuedo-hymn hippie nonsense I’ve ever heard. I can get on board with a fair number of catchy or moving 70s hymns but this one is completely wrong and inelegant. Are we singing AS Jesus? TO Jesus? I don’t get the point of this as liturgical music, it just sounds like a dated pop song. My kids couldn’t believe how lame it was. I had to keep the teen from laughing at the “just where it is.”

    • admin says:

      G’Day Kate
      I agree with you, I think this one is well past its use by date. The collection it is from is from the 1990s and it was still in high rotation back then. I haven’t heard it at mass for the last decade. In this post I think I was trying to find something nice to say about it.

      You know, however, the oddest songs are meaningful to people in their situation or were important in their journey to faith and that needs to be respected.

      We are singing in the voice of God I suspect here and that, too, has become problematic. Where it is obvious, because the gathered assembly is an aspect of the real presence of God it can be fine, I suppose, but I don’t miss this one. At least it doesn’t have a recitation.

      cheers
      Geoff

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