“There were also many women there”: Introducing Lay Women in the United States Liturgical Movement

The article explores the often-overlooked participation of lay women in the Liturgical Movement in the United States between 1920 and 1959. Drawing on archival materials, correspondence, and periodicals such as Orate Fratres, The Catholic Worker, and Liturgical Arts Quarterly, it demonstrates that women were not peripheral observers but active contributors to the renewal of Catholic worship and spirituality. Four case studies – Justine Bayard Cutting Ward, Maisie Ward, Ade Bethune, and Florence Berger – illustrate how women engaged with liturgical reform through music, publishing, visual arts, social activism, and family life. Their initiatives connected the liturgy with education, artistic expression, and domestic practice, revealing the Liturgical Movement as a broad social and spiritual project rather than a merely textual reform. By recovering these women’s contributions, the article challenges the androcentric historiography of twentieth-century liturgical studies and highlights the theological and pastoral significance of lay participation. It concludes that the “unfinished and unbegun” work of liturgical renewal, as described by Aidan Kavanaugh, must include the witness and creativity of the many women who embodied the liturgical life in both public and private spheres.