MATHIS, MICHAEL AMBROSE

Liturgist, promoter of missions; b. South Bend, Ind., Oct. 6, 1885; d. University of Notre Dame, South Bend, March 10, 1960. His parents, Jacob P., a carpenter, and Elizabeth (Thome), had immigrated to the United States in 1881 from the Saarland in Germany. He joined the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1901, took his B.Litt. at the University of Notre Dame in 1910, and was ordained in 1914. He studied architecture at the Catholic University of America for a year and then Holy Scripture, earning his S.T.D. in 1920. He was professor of Holy Scripture for seven years at Holy Cross College, Washington, D.C.

Unable to go to the foreign missions because of World War I, he was appointed U.S. procurator for the Holy Cross missions in 1915. He organized the first systematic financial support of these missions, founding in 1917 the Bengal (later Holy Cross) Foreign Mission Society. In 1919 he launched the Bengalese, a magazine that published the work and the needs of the Holy Cross Missions. Mindful too of the importance of properly trained missionaries, he built the Holy Cross Foreign Mission Seminary, Washington, D.C., in 1924 and became its first superior. One of the first missiologists in the United States, he was a recognized authority on India's Catholic missions. In 1930 he was elected president of the Catholic Anthropological Conference. In 1922 he collaborated with Dr. Paluel Flagg and others to form the Medical Mission Committee, which by 1924 became the permanent Catholic Medical Mission Board. Along with Dr. Anna Dengel, he also founded the medical mission sisters in 1925, the first community of women to combine the religious life and the practice of medicine. From 1933 to 1938 he devoted his time and energy completely to them as their chaplain and ecclesiastical superior. To him more than to any other influence the community owes the liturgical spirit that has characterized it.

Mathis, influenced by Pius parsch, came to be known for his contribution to the liturgical apostolate in the United States even more than for his mission work. In the summer of 1947 he started the liturgy program at the University of Notre Dame, leading to an M.A. in liturgy. It was the first graduate school of liturgy in North America. He brought over from Europe outstanding liturgiologists, many of whose courses were published under the general title, Liturgical Studies. In 1954 he organized, as an offshoot of a course on liturgical architecture, an annual seminar for architects and artists at Notre Dame. He was an active member of the Liturgical Conference and a member of its board of directors from 1948 to 1956.

He thus attained distinction in two fields and was a pioneer in each. He was blessed with a tenacity of will that caused him to persevere in spite of difficulties and with a personal warmth and charm that served him well when it came to enlisting the assistance of others in his apostolic works.

Bibliography: g. e. schidel, "Never Too Much. In Memoriam: Rev. Michael Ambrose Mathis, C.S.C.," Yearbook of Liturgical Studies 3 (1962) 3–34.

[g. e. schidel]