The first time I met Helen Hull Hitchcock was when we appeared together on EWTN’s Theology Roundtable program in 2011. Along with host Colin Donovan and my friend Father Douglas Martis, we discussed the potential of the newly promulgated Roman Missal. Helen had worked intensely for years on making the Roman Missal translation a reality. She had attended and reported upon US bishops’ meetings, debated in print and in-person why fidelity to the Tradition and the Council was necessary, and formed and informed the faithful about the translation’s treasures. For my part, I was just the recipient of the hard work of Helen, Adoremus, and many others. I got to stand on the shoulders of giants.
Little did I know, when Helen would die on October 20, 2014, that I would eventually succeed her as the editor of Adoremus in the spring of 2015. While much has remained the same in the Church, in the liturgy, and at Adoremus, her tenure and mine also have marked differences.
In many ways, Helen, Susan Benofy, and the St. Louis staff continued, corrected, and completed a phase of the liturgical movement that had begun in the early 1950s. At that time, Pope Pius XII had allowed as an experiment, and only in some places, the possibility of celebrating a revised Easter Vigil, one that would be a true evening or nighttime celebration that would watch for the passing over of the Lord (unlike the customary celebrations of the Vigil that would begin early Holy Saturday morning). The year 1955 would see the mandatory use of the entire Holy Week. Pius XII died on October 9, 1958, Pope John XXIII was elected on October 28—and less than three months later the new pope announced on January 25, 1959, his intention to call the Second Vatican Council.
The Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, called for “the reform and promotion of the liturgy” (1) and laid down principles and norms for reform. Postconciliar instructions—from Inter Oecuminici in September 1964 to Liturgiam Authenticam in March 2001—guided the proper implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Their fruits—whether you think them sweet or sour—were the liturgical books themselves, particularly the Roman Missal in its current form, and even this year’s revised editions of Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery Outside Mass and the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults.
In short: the past 75 long years have seen a remarkable focus on ritual reform, change, and implementation. It was a phase of the liturgical movement whose centerpiece was moving rites. And we are grateful to Helen, her staff, and the Adoremus Bulletin for helping to steer it in the “rite” direction.
But by 2024, the liturgical movement is seeking something even more radical and traditional: a return to the early days of this modern apostolate when the end game was not primarily about moving or changing rites and books but was rooted in the desire to move people further into the mystery of the liturgy.
During those early days, hand Missals were an original aid to help the faithful follow with and enter into the sacrifice of the Mass. Liturgical Weeks of study and learning began in Belgium in the first decade of the 1900s and in the United States in 1940. And earlier liturgical journals and publications—such as Orate Fratres, published in Collegeville, MN—began in 1926. Each initiative exemplifies the overall focus on leading the faithful into the heart of the liturgy with intelligence and devotion.
Today’s liturgical movement finds itself in much the same situation as in those years prior to the 1950s. Insofar as the liturgy invites a culture into its celebrations—that is, a liturgical rite is meant to draw a particular people to meet Christ in its signs and symbols—it is never static, never a once-and-for-all product. Still, the books at hand today are unlikely to see the same revisions as the Church experienced over the last century. Translations of the reformed Latin typical editions are all but complete. Pope John Paul II signaled this shift even during his own pontificate when he said: “One cannot therefore continue to speak of a change as it was spoken of at the time of the Constitution’s publication; rather one has to speak of an ever deeper grasp of the Liturgy of the Church, celebrated according to the current books and lived above all as a reality in the spiritual order” (Vicesimus Quintus Annus, 14).
But as Helen, her staff, and Adoremus Bulletin supported the liturgical apostolate as its rites coalesced, so will your current editor, staff, and Bulletin carry on the work of moving God’s people to encounter the great treasure of the liturgy.
To that end, allow me to share a few of the initiatives that Adoremus is preparing to continue in carrying on this mission—initiatives that are extending Adoremus’s reach far beyond its Bulletin, website, and social media—beyond the new audio readings of Bulletin stories, beyond the new “Becoming God” podcast, and beyond the publications in book form of many of our article series.
First, Adoremus will collaborate with the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation by offering four online courses in liturgical-sacramental basics: 1) Introduction to the Sacred Liturgy, 2) Introduction to the Sacraments, 3) Exploring the Source and Summit (the Eucharist), and 4) Sacramentals, The Liturgy of the Hours, and Devotions. Each course is six-weeks in duration for 90 minutes in the evening, and taught by Adoremus staff and Adoremus authors.
Second, Adoremus has joined with the Josephinum Diaconate Institute in Columbus, OH, to create short courses in the sacred liturgy. These courses are meant to assist permanent deacons in formation for ordination and provide post-ordination ongoing education. The permanent diaconate, restored by the Second Vatican Council, plays an increasingly important role in the parish and its liturgies, and Adoremus is grateful for this chance to promote the liturgical apostolate in this way.
Third, Adoremus will support Christendom College in its new Institute for Liturgical Formation. This Master of Arts in Theology program features a 12-course concentration on liturgy and sacraments. Held in-person at Christendom College’s Front Royal, VA, campus over four weeks in the summer, the Institute for Liturgical Formation will offer a rites- and sacramental-based formation that will assist priests and other parish and diocesan liturgical leaders to celebrate the sacred liturgy beautifully, reverently, and authentically according to the revised rites of the Latin Church.
If in its first two decades Adoremus (like Pius XII before it) worked to reform the liturgy so that it conveyed more clearly the divine things it signified, today Adoremus (like Benedict XVI in our own time) works to implement that official liturgy faithfully and to move members of the Church ever deeper into its saving mystery.
When Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio announced the birth of Adoremus on behalf of the board in 1995, he said, “We wish we could promise you that this will be a short term project. The task of educating ourselves and supplying aid to bishops and the Holy See will probably take years. But the service we will render will be one that will affect generations of Catholics here and elsewhere.” I hope that he, Helen—and you, our readers and supporters—will be pleased with the course that Adoremus has taken over the years and share our optimism for the next 30 years to kingdom come.
