Daniel Laurent Schutte

Daniel Laurent Schutte is an American Roman Catholic liturgical composer, songwriter, retreat leader, and former Jesuit. He became known in the 1970s as one of the St. Louis Jesuits, alongside Bob Dufford, John Foley, Roc O’Connor, and Tim Manion. The group emerged while its members were studying at Saint Louis University and helped shape a new body of Scripture-centered English-language Catholic congregational music following the Second Vatican Council.

After graduating from Saint Louis University in 1973, Schutte taught high school in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, before continuing theological and liturgical studies in Berkeley, California. He earned graduate degrees in theology and liturgy through the Graduate Theological Union and later undertook graduate study in music composition at Seattle University. His catalog includes City of God, Sing a New Song, Though the Mountains May Fall, You Are Near, and Only This I Want.

Schutte wrote Here I Am, Lord in 1979 while studying theology in Berkeley. His own published account describes receiving a last-minute request for music for a diaconate ordination while he was ill with influenza. The resulting text drew on biblical call narratives and was subsequently refined with feedback from his fellow St. Louis Jesuits.