The holiday season is full of spiritual music, songs that proclaim the compassion and might of God and Jesus.

These songs can be performed almost on a lark. Sometimes, it's difficult to find a genuine sense of spirituality in these spirituals.

Finbar Wright is one of The Irish Tenors, and when he performs religious songs in his concerts, he finds himself transported to a different place. They play in a sold-out concert tonight in the Landmark Theatre.

Yes, he sings the songs nearly every night, flying from city to city to perform in arenas and theaters, but he insists the songs still fill him with humility and longing. He never just goes through the motions, he says.

"I never fail to be moved," Wright says from his hotel room in Boston during a break in his current tour. "When I sing, 'How Great Thou Art,' a religious ballad that is one of those standards, it never fails to move me.

"That song just encompasses that whole feeling that we are a very small piece of what is in this world, and that the believer and for the Christian believes God is at the very other end of that spectrum.

"I love nature, and I'm a very keen gardener. I look at trees, and I see the beauty of nature there, and you see God mirrored in that. That's where I draw that inspiration and think, 'God, how great thou art.'"

Wright is a deeply religious man. He served as a Catholic priest for eight years, from 1980 to 1988, before resigning.

"I didn't have the fire within," Wright says. He still faithfully attends his local church with his wife and two children. He still spends time considering the majesty of God, he says.

The Tenors - Ronan Tynan, Anthony Kearns and Wright - are currently soaring by using a simple approach.

They travel with a 47-piece orchestra and play well-known songs without even the barest hint of irony.

The approach is working.

"Even now, at the height of their fame, the Irish Tenors remain as earnest and unspoiled as ever," writes Barbara Zuck of The Columbus Dispatch.

"Which is good news, because sincerity is a good measure of their charm. ... When the Irish Tenors sing, it's about great music honestly sung. Hallelujah."

"Listening to the Irish Tenors can make you so homesick for Ireland, you might forget that you've never actually been there," writes Brett Milano of the Boston Herald.

Wright has taken an unlikely path to the stage. He did not begin voice training until 1984, during the middle of his days as a priest. As a young man, growing up only a few hundred yards from an Irish beach, he failed to take great interest in his music lessons.

The youngest of eight children, Wright was expected to follow the path of his legion of siblings and learn to play the piano. He wasn't wildly enthusiastic.

In fact, when mom and dad left the room, Wright departed the piano bench and jumped right out of the first-floor window. Freedom and wide-open spaces awaited him.

"Nobody wants to sit at the piano and practice scales all day," he says, laughing.

The Irish Tenors belong to a long line of performers who deliver artfully sentimental music with admirable craftsmanship. They follow the path of Perry Como, Lawrence Welk and Barry Manilow, performers who walk gracefully down the middle of the road. They also have followed these men to the bank, selling a mountain of CDs.

The Landmark was packed Friday night with a worshipful crowd, which is the norm for the Tenors.

The trio delivered. Backed by a 47-piece orchestra, Ronan Tynan, Finbar Wright and Anthony Kearns followed their simple approach, performing traditional songs with sincerity and a refreshing lack of self-indulgence.

The Tenors spend only a wee amount of time on stage talk and seem a bit embarrassed by prolonged applause. The focus is on the music.

Oh, there were a few clunkers. "Love Me Tender" failed as a parody, drawing nervous laughs from the crowd, and a Christmas medley puttered along with a stale sound.

Mostly, though, the Tenors' no-flash approach worked, and there were moments when the singers flirted with brilliance.

Kearns, singing solo on "Grace," told the story of an Irish rebel who marries his beloved only a few minutes before heading to the gallows. His restrained style only heightened the drama and heartbreak of the tale.

On "Silent Night," the trio's intricate harmonizing made an old song sound fresh and powerful.

Of course, the Tenors sang "Danny Boy," and it was wonderful. Only a listener with an icy heart could fail to be touched by the thought of those summers in the meadow, lost forever.