Aemiliana Löhr and Herstelle Abbey’s Jahresbriefe

A Remarkable Contribution to the Liturgical Movement

Abstract

This article makes a case for the rediscovery of a unique corpus of texts related to a crucial stage in the Liturgical Movement in Germany. The nuns of Herstelle Abbey, whose spiritual director had been Dom Odo Casel, published seventeen volumes of Jahresbriefe from 1948 till 1966. The issues of this journal can be rightly interpreted as an experiment of sorts in liturgical theology between World War II and Vatican II. Many of the topics and concerns of the day were addressed in the contributions to the Jahresbriefe. Yet they did a lot more than spreading information or explaining things. They creatively interacted with the core question of what the paschal mystery means and how it is manifested in the world and in history through the celebration of the liturgy. In addition to writing their own essays and reflections, the nuns of Herstelle Abbey, among whom Aemiliana Löhr is arguably the most famous, translated works from the Church Fathers, expressed themselves in a variety of literary genres, and dealt with theological topics that mattered then and now. The major goal of the present article is to demonstrate the extraordinary thematic richness of the Jahresbriefe, and to thereby lay a firm foundation for future studies of this truly remarkable collection of texts.