Virgil Michel, OSB, died this day in 1938. Founder of the American liturgical movement, Fr. Virgil did not found the movement alone, but in concert with his confreres, seminary friends, and an every-expanding circle of women and men, lay, religious, and ordained, who he invited and encouraged to take part of the spiritual and social movement which was the liturgical movement.
Just two months ago, I had the privilege of attending the Mass of Christian Burial for the only person I’ve ever met who laid physical eyes on Fr. Virgil. Mechthild Mueller Ellis (1931-2024) died this past September 25, 2024. I met her, just over 10 years ago, in July of 2013, when visiting the Monastic Institute at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. I had been asked to pinch-hit as a speaker, and so utilized my newly-forged area of the liturgical movement, focusing on social action and the home, for my topics.
When some of my religious sister and monk friends heard my plan they said, “Oh my goodness! You have to meet Tildy! Her mom was into the liturgical movement!” Well, 82-year old Tildy turned out to be the eldest daughter of Therese and Franz Mueller, escapees of Nazi occupation, new German immigrants who made their way to Minnesota by way of St. Louis friends (e.g. Msgr. Martin Hellriegel and Rev. William Huelsmann), and friends of Virgil Michel himself.
With much anticipation and great delight I met Tildy while I was at Collegeville. We talked—I in awe, she with graciousness—and she shared photos of her family. Then, I asked her if she knew Virgil. She smiled and she told me this story:
When I was little there was a liturgical essay contest. I worked very hard on the essay and then one evening my parents had Fr. Virgil over to visit us. I kept pestering him, “Father Virgil who won the essay contest, who won”? And he wouldn’t answer me. He just smiled. Well, it turned out that I had won.
For the timing of her story to work out, Tildy was probably a 2nd grader, and the family must have met Fr. Virgil when he stopped by St. Louis on his way back to Saint John’s Abbey, and were introduced by their pastor, Fr. Huelsmann. This was the last lecture tour Virgil took in 1938. The Muellers would have seen him just weeks before he died.
What Tildy shared with me opens up another dimension of the same 19th-century child who wrote philosophy, kept meticulous notecards for his preaching, wheedled his abbot into founding a publishing house, and drew thousands of the faithful into one common cause. Sources tell us that Virgil was not even a compelling speaker, but rather dry in tone and delivery. And yet, people wanted to hear what he had to say; he would fill lecture halls, the New York Catholic Worker delighted in his visits, and children, like Mechtild, were happy to come to him.
I am thankful to Fr. Virgil who we remember this day, and thankful to all the friends he inspired to love the liturgy in his own generation—and beyond.
His work, and our work, is still only just begun.
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