The Font in the Fields: The Liturgical Movement Alive in Rural Kentucky

“…the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows.” –Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10

Often times, I’ve found that people are surprised to discover that summertime for a seminarian isn’t two and a half months of vacation. Most of the time, we are assigned to parishes, hospitals, or other sites for ministry internships, which take up the majority of, and sometimes all of, our summer breaks. This presents us with the opportunity to grow not only in our comfortability ministering, but also presents an educational opportunity. By ministering in settings where we will one day be, we learn things that simply cannot be adequately learned in a classroom setting. Other times, this means watching something we’ve learned come alive right before our eyes.

This summer, I went somewhere I had never been before, at least to live—I was assigned to two parishes in rural Kentucky, very near the center of the Commonwealth. Made up of three counties, this area is known as the “Kentucky Holy Land,” because it was where the first Catholic families to come to Kentucky settled. Eventually, this area of rural Kentucky became the Diocese of Bardstown, out of which by today has been carved over forty other dioceses and archdioceses. Essentially, Catholicism west of the Appalachians laid its roots in central Kentucky. While times have changed, and our diocesan see has moved and now only encompasses twenty-four counties in central Kentucky, the people of the Holy Land still live in small, rural towns, and are still Catholic—at least the overwhelming majority are.

So, here I was in literal Small Town USA—a town where pretty much everyone knew who everyone else was, and by the glances I got as I walked down the street or around the local Wal-Mart, a town where everyone knew I wasn’t a local (this, by the way, is not to say that the glances were mean or that the people weren’t friendly—they were extremely friendly!). As my time in this rural area of Kentucky progressed, I slowly came to the realization that right in front of my eyes, I was witnessing something I had learned about at both seminaries I have attended come alive. What was it? Well, if you read the title, which you likely did, you already know the answer—the Liturgical Movement.

And because way too many people ask when I talk about the Liturgical Movement—NO—I’m not talking about liturgical dance, so go ahead and hang that leotard and those ribbons back in the closet.

The Liturgical Movement was essentially an ideological, academic, and grass roots movement within the Church, particularly in Europe and the United States, that led up to the liturgical renewal and reforms that came out of the Second Vatican Council. Yet, at the same time, it was so much more—the liturgical movement affected virtually every sphere of Catholic life. Yes, it impacted the liturgy, but it also was involved in social issues, home life, art, and even architecture. Fathers and Mothers of the liturgical movement included not only priests (like Martin Hellriegel and Romano Guardini) and religious (like Virgil Michel and Godfrey Diekmann), but social activists such as Dorothy Day, as well. This multi-faceted approach to renewal that we call the Liturgical Movement wasn’t just about the Sacrifice of the Mass—it was about how that central act of worship and praise of God impacted who we are as not only followers of the One that we receive, but as members of His mystical body.

One of the hallmarks of the renewal that the Liturgical Movement sought was the ideal—and eventual doctrine—of the aforementioned Mystical Body of Christ. This idea can be found in the writings of Saint Paul, who described us as being one body with many parts (Romans 12:4), and was formally articulated by Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi in 1943. In his encyclical, Pius XII claims that it is through Baptism that we are incorporated into the Body of Christ, and that it is precisely because of this that we are called to take part in an active fellowship within the Body. In order to do so, the Christian must thereby take part in the Church’s outward expression of this fellowship, meaning that members of Christ’s Body are called to an active participation in the liturgy—the “source and summit” of all the Church does (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10)—and what the Church says should be “considered before all else” (SC, 14).

Although we are often times tempted to think the idea of “active participation” in the liturgy as a product of the Second Vatican Council, it is actually a bit older than that. If we look at the Church through the lens of the Liturgical Movement, we see that it must be so, since this idea was one of the movement’s driving forces. The idea of active participation can be traced back to Pius X, who, in his 1903 motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini not only encouraged this idea, but gave the Liturgical Movement itself “papal legitimization.”[1]It was this encouragement and endorsement from the Holy Father that sparked a movement that blazed its way across Europe in great Benedictine epicenters of renewal such as Solesmes and Maria Laach, but also travelled across an ocean to America through the bridge of Virgil Michel, a monk of Saint John’s Abbey and creator of the liturgical journal Orate Fratres, which we today know as Worship. Through Michel’s initiatives, the work and enthusiasm behind the Liturgical Movement would spread to not only Benedictine Monasteries (including Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana, which in the early 1940’s hosted one of the National Liturgical Weeks, and is now the place I call home as I take part in priestly formation for my Archdiocese in their seminary.), but into the parishes and homes of “average” Catholics throughout the nation—including the rural area of Kentucky that I lived in this summer.

As I observed the parish communities that I was a part of this past summer, there were a few key things I noticed, which kept bringing me back to my studies of the Liturgical Movement, which are, conveniently, all related. The central focus is, of course, participation, but flowing from that participation, just as the works of the Church flow from the liturgy, were the utilization of two developments of the movement, as well as a specific identity held by members of the congregation.

First, participation. I’m sure that most of us as Catholic Christians have experienced the phenomenon of people coming to Mass and simply going through the motions. I’ve done it myself. Well, that may have very well been the case in the parishes that I was in, but from my perspective in the sanctuary, what I did see was people who were actively engaged in the Mass. They were attentive to the homilies, were reverent, and they sang! There were a few songs that I didn’t know very well at times, but the full-voiced singing of the congregation inspired me to at least attempt. There was even one instance where, for some reason which I can’t remember, the pianist stopped playing, but the congregation kept singing. This was also one of the few experiences I’ve had where the children were so attentive, that when they were serving, I didn’t really have to direct them…at times, they ended up directing me to ensure I was faithful to their local parish customs!

A note of congregational participation that I noticed was also the use of missals to follow along with the readings and Mass parts. Missals were first popularized in the United States with the 1932 publication of Joseph Stedman’s My Sunday Missal, which enabled and encouraged the laity in the pews to “pray with the Church.”[2] Now, using a missal during Mass may not seem out of the ordinary. After all, we all have our parishes with our own “church ladies” who sit and pull their missal out of their purse before Mass, adjust their glasses, and attentively follow along with the readings and prayers of the liturgy. Yet, this wasn’t the case in this community. The missals were in every pew, making them available for everyone’s use, not just the church ladies who would inevitably bring their own—and they were used by everyone—young and old. Honestly, I felt somewhat “out of place” not using one myself. While there was at times an apparent temptation to over-use the missal, such as some never looking up from the book in their hands, and less than a handful clutching to them at daily Mass (although the books in the pew only had the Sunday readings) for the most part, I observed that they were appropriately used. This was, quite frankly, the only community I’ve seen with such an overwhelming use of the missal. I discussed it at one point with my father, who came into his young adulthood in the midst of the liturgical movement, and found himself as a twenty-something, as we apparently now like to be called, during the time of the Council. He said that he hadn’t seen a community with such wide-spread use of the missal since that time, making my experience unique—at least to the area I call home.

A handful of the parishioners also seemed to have a grasp on the idea that for the Catholic Christian, our life of prayer and of worshipping the Lord extends well beyond the one hour that they spend in the pew on Sunday. During the Liturgical Movement, there was an effort to make the use of the Liturgy of the Hours, or the Divine Office, more wide-spread, seemingly springing from the realization that this was indeed the prayer of the Church-at-large—the Body of Christ—and doesn’t need to be, and really, shouldn’t be, restricted to those priests and religious to promise to pray it for the Church and for the world. In her book The Delights of the Breviary, Ellen Gates Starr, a lay woman who collaborated closely with Virgil Michel and contributed to Orate Fratres, wrote, “Nothing can take the place of these great universal prayers of the Church, the prayers of the Mass and the Divine Office. One has only to know them to find them indispensable. And alas, how few of the laity know them!” [3] Unfortunately, her statement is still true today—a vast majority of the Church has no clue that there is an “official prayer of the Church” to be found in the Divine Office. Personally, I had never heard of it until I entered the seminary.

Then, there was this community among whom I was living. A few of them, and hopefully one day many more, had reclaimed for themselves this practice of the Liturgy of the Hours. After daily Mass, whenever they were all together, they would pray Morning Prayer together before leaving. I was impressed to see that they always knew exactly what page they were to be on, and they even had the Gospel Canticle memorized. Even more impressive, they each had their own copy of the breviary, not needing to make use of the copies the parish had in the church. These may seem like minute details, but when considering how few people know of the breviary, I found it to be quite extraordinary. After I prayed with them the first time, I learned that they each had their own habits of praying the office—some sticking to Morning and Evening Prayer, some adding in Compline before bed. Additionally, they all had—or seemed to have—an understanding that the prayers they were taking part in were an extension of what they had just experienced in the Mass, and therefore, were also important to their lives of faith. Just as the celebration of the Mass on the altar of their own parish united them to the altars in the parishes all over the world, so, too, did their praying of the Divine Office unite them with the priests, religious, and laity all over the world who were pausing their day to praise the Lord.

Through observing this rural community of Catholics doing the work of the Church, worshipping God in the context of both Eucharistic liturgy and the Divine Office, I found them to be a community that prays, which, at least to me, seems to be the goal that Pius X, Pius XII, and the Council Fathers had in mind. The people in these communities, at least on the surface, seemed to be a people who had come to the realization long ago (and thus enabled today’s parishioners to grow up in this environment) that when it comes to liturgy, they aren’t just spectators. They, by virtue of their Baptism, have an identity and a role to play as a member of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Enter Robert Cardinal Sarah, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments at the Vatican. This summer, he stated, as he has multiple times, that he is in favor of the Church returning to an ad orientum style of worship, meaning that at Mass, the priest is facing the same direction as the congregation, just as he would have before the reforms that sprung out of the Second Vatican Council. He also said that he would love to see it by Advent. Then, the media, including Catholic media, did what it does best—made people freak out. Rhetoric of the Church returning to pre-Vatican ways, of Pope Francis allegedly demanding that the Cardinal (one he put in that position himself, by the way) be silenced, and a whole lot of either excitement or discomfort by pretty much everyone filled the Catholic newsfeed. Rural Kentucky was no exception.

Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to be able to have open and honest conversations, mostly involving me listening, with a few people in the community about what the Cardinal said, and what their reaction was as a person in the pew each week (and for some, every day). I found this valuable because I believe that, at least in my opinion, seminarians, and dare I say, some priests (on both sides of the argument), can get too caught up in what their personal preference is. This is something I’ve noticed in myself, that at times, I take into account what I like rather than what would be best for the community, and ultimately, for the Church. From the parishioners to whom I was able to listen, I discovered that their main issue with the Cardinal’s statement goes back to the sense of identity engrained into the community.

From the older parishioners who were growing up in the time of the Liturgical Movement and became young adults, just as my father did, in the midst of the Second Vatican Council, they expressed what it was like before the liturgy experienced renewal. While it was indeed beautiful at times, it also led, in some instances, to confusion as to exactly why they were there. (Insert here your stories of hearing about people praying the Rosary with mother during Mass, since they couldn’t understand and often times, couldn’t even hear, the prayers that were being said…many of the elderly parishioners where I was assigned, by the way, still have a Rosary wrapped around their hand during Mass.) Then the Council happened. Then the vernacular was allowed. Then the priest began to face them. Yes, I know, the Council never mandated that the priest face the congregation, but we must look at the effect that it had. Sacrosanctum Concilium, through its call for full, conscious, and active participation on the part of the laity, what I said earlier was to be “considered before all else” (SC 14), also ushered in a collaborative approach to the liturgy. Since the laity now had an identity as members of Christ’s Body, they also had a role to play in the liturgy, and were no longer mere spectators, but indeed collaborators in the Church’s work of worshipping God in the liturgy. As a wise professor I had in college once said, “Since when do we all face the same direction when we are in collaboration?” Yes, there’s legitimate theology for ad orientum, but there’s legitimate theology and pastoral implications for this approach, too—one that we cannot deny, especially if it is because it is not “what we prefer.”

In all, the main concern that I was hearing didn’t seem to be which direction the priest was facing. It appeared to be, rather, that the concern was that the lay faithful were going to risk losing their legitimate identity as not only active participants, but collaborators in the liturgy—that maybe, just maybe, this would become a doorway to mandating that things return to the way they were before the Council. Could that be seen as overreacting? Probably. Yet, with them having experienced both sides of the fence, I think it is legitimized to some extent. Yes, we can sit here and pull out our theology books and our own examination of what the Council “really” meant, but should we not instead, or at least first, sit back in awe of what is at play here? Should we not be thankful that they love the Church and the liturgy so much—that they love being a part of the most important thing that the Church does—that they so ardently desire to preserve their identity that has become so engrained in their experience of their community? Should we not examine ourselves and see if our love is that deep?

There’s more that could be said, but I believe that it would only drag down the point. The Liturgical Movement was an important event in the Church—it, in a significant way, made the Church who she is today. Alcuin Deutsch, OSB, Virgil Michel’s abbot at Saint John’s spoke of the movement in this way:

Many are not gauging correctly the importance of the Liturgical Movement. It is not the work of a few enthusiasts or faddists, through there may be some such among its promoters; nor of a single religious Order. It is a movement inaugurated by the head of the Church—bound to be fruitful because the creative power of the Holy Ghost impregnates it. Its promoters have made and will make mistakes, but it will go on until it has produced the fruit desired by God—provided we consent to be tools in God’s hands.[4]

The goal that the promoters of the movement had was a renewal that would enable us as followers of Christ to more fully become who we are—members of His Body—an identity that would, and can, best be realized if we take part in what Christ commanded us to do—to do what He did in His memory—to bring His very presence into the world every single day. The task sounds daunting, but seeing a community that seems to be doing it can do nothing but give one hope that it is possible.

In all things, may God be glorified.

Amen.

[1] Harmon, Katharine E. There Were Also Many Women There: Lay Women in the Liturgical Movement in the United States 1926-59. The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, MN. 2010. 7.

[2] Pecklers, Keith. The Unread Vision: The Liturgical Movement in the United States of America: 1926-1955. The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, MN. 1998. 50.

[3] Starr, The Delights of the Breviary, page 263, quoted in Harmon, 84n101.

[4] Quoted in Pecklers, 45n63.