The Life and Work of Mary Perkins Ryan The Interplay of Liturgy and Adult Catechesis in Whole Community Education

the modern ecclesial era “prepared for by decades of theological and pastoral renewal in Europe, ” the pastoral developments it inspired were framed by the forerunners of the liturgical and catechetical movements who were actively writing, consulting and organizing for several decades prior to the opening session of the Council (O’Meara 2004). Among the more recognizable figures in the early American liturgical movement include Virgil Michel, Godfrey Diekman, Martin Hellriegel and Gerald Ellard. It was a full quarter century before the influence of the European kerygmatic renewal, inspired by Josef Jungmann and Johannes Hofinger, also materialized as a national movement in modern catechetics. By the 1950's, these two parallel movements in the American Church shared the conviction that the renewal of the Church in the modern world requires “that the liturgy and strictly speaking the Eucharist, becomes the vitalizing and directing principle of the Christain life ” (Hughes 1990). It is within the circle of the early voices of liturgical reform that we find Mary Perkins Ryan. Ryan published her first liturgical work at the age of twenty-five entitled, At Your Ease in the Catholic Church (1937). It was followed in 1940 with her release of Your Catholic Language. As an educated Roman Catholic layperson pursing a literary career in the 1930's, Ryan’s skills as a writer an