James Quinn

James Quinn was a Scottish Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, educator, liturgical consultant, and hymn writer. Born in Glasgow in 1919, he was educated at St. Aloysius' College and the University of Glasgow before entering the Society of Jesus in 1939. He studied philosophy and theology within the Jesuit formation system, was ordained in 1950, and spent much of his priesthood in education and spiritual direction. From 1976 to 1980 he served as spiritual director at the Beda College in Rome.

Quinn also served as a consultant to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy during the period when English-language Roman Catholic worship was being reshaped after the Second Vatican Council. His first hymn collection, New Hymns for All Seasons, appeared in 1969. Later collections gathered a large body of original texts, paraphrases, and translations designed for congregational worship.

Representative works include Christ Be Beside Me, Forth in the Peace of Christ We Go, Day Is Done, But Love Unfailing, and Word of God, Come Down on Earth. His hymns entered Roman Catholic and many Protestant hymnals, giving his work an unusually broad ecumenical reception. He died in Edinburgh in 2010.