“The Work of Human Hands: Liturgy and the Senses,” April 15–17, 2027, will be a conference on the campus of the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, IN, hosted by the Theology Department (Liturgical Studies) at the University of Notre Dame, Sacred Music at Notre Dame, and the Raclin-Murphy Museum of Art. It is sponsored by the Notre Dame Arts Initiative, the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, and the Global Catholic Research Initiative at Notre Dame.
“The Work of Human Hands: Liturgy and the Senses” will convene scholars from a wide variety of disciplines from around the world at the University of Notre Dame to share their work and wisdom on the intersection between liturgy and the senses. Intentionally broad, the theme invites liturgists, art historians, musicologists, theologians, biblical exegetes, patrologists, historians, musicians, artists, scholars of religion and of ritual, disability specialists, anthropologists, sociologists, ethnographers, archeologists, philosophers, catechists, pastoral practitioners, etc. to an interdisciplinary, constructive conversation about the ways in which Christian and Jewish worship forms, employs, invokes, evokes, and plays on human sense perception—sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, kinesthetics and proprioception, as well as the imaginative faculties.
Those wishing to present are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 300 words by August 1, 2026. Presentations should run for twenty minutes and will be followed by an additional ten minutes for questions and answers. Participants will hear if their paper has been selected by September 1, 2026. Both faculty and graduate students are encouraged to submit. Again, submissions are welcomed and encouraged from every discipline and focusing on any historical period–as long as proposals touch in some form or fashion on the intersection between liturgy and the senses. Presentations that draw on the Raclin Murphy’s collection are also welcome. For more information on that resource, contact Emily Normand at enormand@nd.edu.
This conference honors the memory of early Christian liturgical historian Dr. Nathan Chase (PhD 2020). An alumnus of Notre Dame’s Liturgical Studies program, Nathan’s work exemplified the junction between liturgical history, human sensation, and contemporary practice. (See, for example, his Sensory Liturgy project.) The Work of Human Hands: Liturgy and the Senses has been inspired by and seeks to continue Nathan’s work.
Please submit paper proposals by August 1, 2026 by means of the following form: https://forms.gle/dJKtJxLg5Ymoe3Y16. If you have questions, reach out to belcher.4@nd.edu and shyun@nd.edu.
Nathan P. Chase, PhD, 1990-2025
Professional Biography
Nathan Chase was baptized and formed in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, and at a young age became interested in its liturgical reform, particularly early twentieth-century developments and the work of Arthur Carl Piepkorn. After his formation at Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas and Boston College, he came into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. He continued to be very interested in liturgical renewal, as well as ecumenical relationships.
I met Nathan when he enrolled in St John’s Seminary · School of Theology in 2011. My first impressions were of his enthusiasm for his work, his pastoral sensitivity and depth, and his devastatingly comprehensive knowledge of anaphoral history – including a historiographic and methodological analysis of how that history had been made. His interest in the methods of liturgical studies animated all his publications and united his various interests in the field, which, in addition to the history of the Eucharist, included church orders and early Egyptian liturgy; the non-Roman Western Rites, especially the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite; Christian art and architecture; chrism and Christian initiation; time and space; inculturation; contemporary liturgical renewal and ecumenical dialogue; the role of the senses in liturgy; and many, many other things.
After two degrees at St John’s, Nathan got an advanced masters degree at KU Leuven in Belgium, and then came to Notre Dame to work with Maxwell Johnson, who he loved and revered. Though he worked on a number of different projects at Notre Dame, including the Baptisteries of the Ancient World grant and catalogue with Robin Jensen and Nathan Dennis, he wrote his dissertation work, as he had always intended, on the Barcelona Papyrus and its implications for anaphoral history (published as a monograph with Brill in 2023). He finished his Ph.D. in 2020 and was hired at the Aquinas Institute in St. Louis, where he served as an assistant professor in sacramental and liturgical theology until his death in 2025.
Nathan was passionate about liturgical renewal and its foundation in the history of Christian practice. He was interested in the pastoral implications of liturgical studies, for example in his work at the PrayTell blog. He loved to travel and cared about seeing the on-the-ground places where liturgical history had been made. He was also a dedicated and generous collaborator who developed heartfelt friendships and co-authored and -edited numerous projects. For him the friendships and the scholarly work were intertwined: though extraordinarily productive as a scholar, he was even more remarkable in his personal generosity, always remembering that we are persons first, scholars second.
Nathan was always a man of deep faith, and that faith carried him through the struggles of over a year of treatment for leukemia. His colleagues at Aquinas Institute, as well as throughout the world, were also deeply supportive, and he treasured the love he received. He understood the hope and disappointment, the physical and emotional pain associated with the disease and with his long term confinement, as a participation in Christ’s Paschal Mystery. He rarely complained and was a deep support to me personally and his other friends and family, even as he stretched himself to accept help – always a challenge for him.
He continued to do what he loved throughout his treatment, with several books and articles still forthcoming. He remotely introduced Teresa Berger’s Berakah address at the North American Academy of Liturgy 2025, a vulnerable moment as he was visibly ill. He was asked to contribute the junior scholar’s perspective for the 2026 100th Anniversary edition of Worship and finished it, knowing he might be running out of time. His passion project in his last months was the production of an Open Access Exultet Scroll modeled on the medieval Exultet rolls but intended for contemporary church use for the proclamation of the Easter Vigil. This project, one of his last, shows the deep intersection of his love for liturgical history and of the church.
In his last day Nathan consoled his friends and family with his deep hope in Christ and his love for his family, friends and professional colleagues, and indeed the whole of creation. He left lucidly and willingly to go to God and spoke his profound hopes for the theological discipline, and especially for early liturgical history, which was so dear to him. He was only 34, but he left us eight books (three monographs, five co-authored or co-edited books, three of which are forthcoming), 27 peer-reviewed journal articles (including several interdisciplinary co-authored works), the Sensory Liturgy open access experimental pedagogical project, wisdom, and precious memories. He will be very deeply missed.
Scholarly Bibliography
Forthcoming:
Nathan P. Chase, “Contextualizing the Unknown Anaphora in BL Or. 3580 A.9 (=A.7) – Crum 150.” Forthcoming in Ecclesia Orans.
Nathan P. Chase, “Evaluating Eusebius’ Anaphora in Light of Additional Evidence: More Egyptian-Palestinian Anaphoral Parallels.” Forthcoming in Ecclesia Orans.
Nathan P. Chase, “Reprising the Evidence for the Origins of Daily Eucharistic Celebrations.” From the symposium “Fractio panis” at Pusey House, Oxford, England, August 2024. To be published in the series “Studia Traditionis Theologiae” by Brepols.
Nathan P. Chase, “Breaking Down the ‘Golden Age’ of Initiation: Baptism in Monasteries, Pilgrimage Centers, and Cemeteries in the Nile Valley.” From the symposium The Liturgies of the Church of Alexandria: From Late Antique Origins to the Medieval Heritage. To be published in the series “Eastern Catholic Studies and Texts” by The Catholic University of America Press.
Nathan Chase and Ágnes Mihálykó, “Liturgy in Fourth Century Egypt: The Evidence from Texts and Material Culture,” To be published in the proceedings from Christians and Christianities in Fourth-Century Egypt, October 17-18, 2024.
Nathan P. Chase, “The Anaphoras of the Barcelona Papyrus, St. Mark, and St. James: An Anaphoral Hydra?” From the Symposium on the Liturgy of Saint James, Regensburg, Germany, June 2022. To be published in the series “Studies in Eastern Christian Liturgies” by Aschendorff Verlag, Münster.
Stefanos Alexopoulos, Nathan Chase, and Anna Petrin, Explorations in Christian Initiation from the East: In Honor of Maxwell E. Johnson, Eastern Catholic Studies and Texts (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, forthcoming).
Nathan Chase, “Further Reflections on the Post-Baptismal Anointing and Handlaying in the Egyptian Tradition.” In Explorations in Christian Initiation from the East: In Honor of Maxwell E. Johnson, edited by Stefanos Alexopoulos, Nathan Chase, and Anna Petrin, forthcoming.
Nathan Chase, Nathan Dennis, and Robin Jensen, Baptisteries of the Early Christian World (Brill, forthcoming).
Nathan Chase, “Region X: Eastern North Africa and Nilotic Lands (Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan).” Co-authored with Mary Farag and Arsany Paul. In Baptisteries of the Early Christian World, edited by Robin Jensen, Nathan Dennis, and Nathan Chase (Brill, forthcoming).
Nathan Chase, “Region XIX: Caucasus and Mesopotamia (Armenia, Eastern Turkey, Georgia, Iraq, and Southern Russia).” In Baptisteries of the Early Christian World, edited by Robin Jensen, Nathan Dennis, and Nathan Chase (Brill, forthcoming).
Kimberly Belcher and Nathan Chase, “Theological and Ritual Principles for Interpreting Ancient Baptistries.” In Baptisteries of the Early Christian World, edited by Robin Jensen, Nathan Dennis, and Nathan Chase (Brill, forthcoming).
Nathan P. Chase, “Angelic Exchange and Old Testament Sacrificial Typologies in Early Eucharistic Prayers: The Relationship Between Rome and Egypt’s Anaphoral Traditions” Questions Liturgiques/Studies in Liturgy, forthcoming.
2027:
Alessandro Bausi and Nathan Chase, “Rite for Christian Initiation from Alexandria,” Prayer in the Ancient World, edited by Daniel Falk and Rodney Werline (Brill, forthcoming; available in the e-book).
2026:
Nathan Chase, “‘Pray, sisters and brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God’: The Liturgical Movement Today,” Worship 100:2 (2026), 110–132.
Nathan P. Chase, “Creation, Liturgy, and Leukemia: Decentering the Liturgical Person within Themselves,” in Worship in Communion with Creation: Recognizing a Broader Participation ; Essays in Honor of Teresa Berger, ed. Melanie C. Ross and Karen B. Westerfield Tucker (Liturgical Press Academic, 2026), 42-57.
2025:
Kimberly Belcher and Nathan Chase, “Confirmation, An Ecclesiological Anamnesis: History, Theology, and Praxis,” Theological Studies 86:2 (2025): 245–267.
Nathan Chase, “Oleoculture: The Production, Ritual Use, and Reservation of ‘the Fruit of the Olive’ in the Early Church,” in On Earth as in Heaven? Liturgy, Materiality, Economics, edited by Melanie Ross (Liturgical Press, 2025) 47-97.
Nathan Chase and Maxwell E. Johnson, The Apostolic Tradition: Its Origins, Development, and Liturgical Practices. With English Translations of the Version Contained in the Aksumite Collection (Ethiopic I) by Alessandro Bausi and the Arabic Version of the Clementine Octateuch (Arabic I) by Martin Lüstraeten (Liturgical Press, 2025).
Nathan Chase, “Missae per titulos: The Emergence of the ‘Titular’ Liturgies During the Triduum in the Old Hispanic Rite,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 17.2 (2025) 155-192.
Nathan Chase, “Lay Preaching as an Authentic Multiplication of Ministries.” In Lay Eucharistic Preaching in a Synodal Catholic Church, edited by Gregory Heille (Liturgical Press, 2025) 59-74.
Nathan Chase, “Furnaces, Candles, and Other Tricks: Christian Clergy as Baptismal ‘Magicians,’” Proceedings of the North American Academy of Liturgy (2025) 75-96. https://doi.org/10.70927/7v3zqf10.
Nathan Chase, “Introduction to the Berakah Response,” Proceedings of the North American Academy of Liturgy (2025) 28-30. https://doi.org/10.70927/efp0e144.
Nathan P. Chase, “Worshipping with Our Senses: A Methodological State of the Question and an Invitation.” Worship 99:2 (2025): 176-187.
2024:
Nathan Chase and Sarah Johnson, “Occasional Religious Practice in Early Christianity” Questions Liturgiques/Studies in Liturgy 104:3-4 (2024) 129-154.
Nathan Chase and Maxwell Johnson, The Origins of the Canons of Hippolytus (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2024).
Kimberly Hope Belcher, Nathan P. Chase, and Alexander Turpin, One Baptism – One Church? A History and Theology of the Reception of Baptized Christians (Liturgical Press, 2024).
“Kitchens and Communion: The Eucharist and Communal Meals in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries.” Ex Fonte – Journal of Ecumenical Studies in Liturgy 3 (2024): 217-295. https://doi.org/10.25365/exf-2024-3-7
Nathan P. Chase, “Rites Belonging to the Period of the Catechumenate.” In A Pastoral and Theological Commentary on the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, edited by Victoria M. Tufano, 65-79. (Chicago: Liturgical Training Publications, 2024).
Nathan P. Chase, “Becoming a Eucharistic People: Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem and the Feast of Corpus Christi.” Pastoral Liturgy 55:3 (2024): 12-13.
Nathan P. Chase, “Developments in Early Eucharistic Praying in Light of Changes in Early Christian Meeting Spaces.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 32 (2024): 367-402.
Nathan Chase, “Anointings with Oil and Handlayings in the Early Eastern Church: Further Evidence for these Gestures as Early Ritual Cognates,” Studia Liturgica 55:1 (2024) 58-78.
Nathan Chase and Ágnes Mihálykó, “The ‘Milan Euchologion’: Reconstructing an Unknown Fourth-Century Anaphora and its Post-Anaphoral Prayers” Vigiliae Christianae 79:1 (2024) 1-52.
Nathan Chase, Eucharistic Praying in Ritual Context: From the New Testament to the Classical Anaphoras, Alcuin/GROW Joint Liturgical Studies 97/98 (Norwich, UK: Hymns Ancient and Modern, 2024).
2023:
Nathan P. Chase, The Anaphoral Tradition in the “Barcelona Papyrus,” Studia Traditionis Theologiae 53 (Turnhout; Belgium: Brepols, 2023).
Nathan P. Chase, “The Zaïre Rite: A Prophetic Sign for Liturgical Inculturation in a Global Church,” in Le rite zaïrois de la messe en République démocratique du Congo: Hommage posthume au Révérend Père Laurent Mpongo Mpoto Mamba, cicm, edited by Ignace Ndongala Maduku, Flavien Muzumanga, and Job Mwana-Kitata, 93–119 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2023).
Nicola Aravecchia and Nathan P. Chase, “The Use and Capacity of Early Churches in Dakhla Oasis: A Liturgical and Archaeological Perspective,” Antiquité Tardive 31 (2023): 251-270.
Nathan P. Chase, “Shaping the Classical Anaphoras of the Fourth Through Sixth Centuries.” In Further Issues in Early Eucharistic Praying, edited by Maxwell Johnson, 23-60. (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2023).
Nathan P. Chase, “The Egyptian Sanctus and the Apse Iconography of the Red Monastery Church: The Early Use of the Sanctus in the Shenoutean Federation,” Le Muséon 136 (2023): 339-403.
Nathan P. Chase, “The Ascent into Heaven: An Answer to the Problem of Time in Liturgical Anamnesis.” Studia Liturgica 53 (2023): 5-23.
2022:
Nathan P. Chase, “From Logos to Spirit Revisited: The Development of the Epiclesis in Syria and Egypt.” Ecclesia Orans 39 (2022): 29-63.
Nathan P. Chase, “Crisis, Liturgy, and Communal Identity: The Celebration of the Hispano-Mozarabic Rite in Toledo, Spain as a Case Study.” Religions 13, no. 3 (2022): 216. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030216.
Nathan P. Chase, “Radiant with Splendor: The Masses of Christmas.” Pastoral Liturgy 53:5 (2022): 4-9.
Nathan P. Chase, “Liturgische Inkulturation im Kontext des US-amerikanischen katholischen multiethnischen Experiments.” In Laboratorium Weltkirche: Die Amazonien-Synode und ihre Potenziale, edited by Judith Gruber, Gregor Maria Hoff, Julia Knop, and Benedikt Kranemann, 154-170. Freiburg: Verlag Herder GmbH, 2022. (English text available on request.)
2021:
Nathan P. Chase, “The Fruits of Communion in the Classical Anaphoras.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 87 (2021): 5-70.
Nathan P. Chase, “A Frayed Tapestry: The Future of the Western Non-Roman Rites.” Questions Liturgiques/Studies in Liturgy 101 (2021): 27-74.
2020:
Nathan P. Chase, “From Arianism to Orthodoxy: The Role of the Rites of Initiation in Uniting the Visigothic Kingdom.” Hispania Sacra 72:146 (2020): 427-438.
Nathan P. Chase, The Homiliae Toletanae and the Theology of Lent and Easter. Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense 56. Studia Breviora 2. (Leuven; Belgium: Peeters, 2020).
Nathan Chase, “This Is the Night,” Contingent Magazine, April 11, 2020, https://contingentmagazine.org/2020/04/11/this-is-the-night/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFX01ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHbSMiCBCBN4H4NomqKCvhaS36vt5_ooViVI07kwg2frbuC4QJ4vIbuyDHA_aem_KR0V7U_v1Y5-x9z-9JusBA.
2019:
Nathan P. Chase, “Apta diei et loco: The Votive Masses in the Holy Land.” Ecclesia Orans 36 (2019): 29-87.
Nathan P. Chase, “Another Look at the ‘Daily Office’ in the Apostolic Tradition.” Studia Liturgica 49 (2019): 5-25.
2018:
Nathan P. Chase, “Pruning the Prayers: Early Medieval Liturgical Adaptation in the Hispano-Mozarabic Easter Vigil,” Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 60 (2018): 122-153.
Nathan P. Chase, “Liturgical Preservation, Innovation, and Exchange at the Crossroads of the Visigothic and Merovingian Kingdoms.” Worship 92 (2018): 415-435.
Nathan P. Chase, “A Chrismatic Framework for Understanding the Intersection of Baptism and Ministry in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 53:1 (2018): 12-45.
2017:
Nathan P. Chase, “The Antiochenization of the Egyptian Tradition: An Alternate Approach to The Barcelona Papyrus and Anaphoral Development.” Ecclesia Orans 34:2 (2017): 319-367.
2014:
Nathan P. Chase, “Baptism into Death in the Jesuit Missions in New France.” Worship 88 (2014): 425-439.
2013:
Nathan P. Chase, “A History and Analysis of the Missel Romain pour les Diocese du Zaire.” Obsculta 6 (2013): 28-36.
PUBLIC-FACING SCHOLARSHIP
Regular blog posts for PrayTell blog, a professional liturgy blog (www.praytellblog.com). Posts from 2013 onward.
A number of activities in “Sensory Liturgy” (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ph9xW6nS8LVS4bXSh-CdFXQi5RoDcWB5?usp=drive_link)
- “Mystagogical Activity on Chrism” (10/2/2024)
- “Mystagogy on Bread and Making your own Eucharistic Bread” (10/2/24)
- “Mystagogy on Wine and Choosing a Eucharistic Wine” (10/2/24)
- “Mystagogy on Worship Spaces” (10/3/24)