Drawing the Holy in the Ordinary: Ade Bethune, the Catholic Worker, and the Liturgical Movement

This article explores the integration of the classical liturgical movement’s focus on social regeneration and the production of Catholic art by examining the work of artist Ade Bethune (1914–2002) during the first decades of the liturgical movement in the United States. Bethune’s work was distinctive because her depictions of the saints stripped holy women and men of the other-worldliness which nineteenth-century devotional grammar had imposed upon them: Mary, Mother of God was “Our Lady of Home Work”; St. Thérèse of Lisieux bent over a washtub; St. Joseph was “St. Joseph the Worker.” Beginning with her involvement in the Catholic Worker movement and through her continued advocacy for the involvement of lay faithful in the creation of liturgical art, Bethune sought to draw the holy in the ordinary, uniting an ordinary life of work and vocation with an extraordinary life of love for Christ. Through her craft, advocacy, writing, and teaching, her work gave visual and tactile realization to the deepest desires of the liturgical movement in the United States: promoting full and active participation on the part of the people, and connecting their worship with their work in their world, allowing the liturgy to be a true font of social regeneration.