Chrysogonus Waddell

Chrysogonus Waddell (1930–2008) was an American Roman Catholic convert and theologian. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was an accomplished organist, liturgist, historian, and a scholar of chant and Cistercian liturgy.
Biography.
Thomas Waddell, born on March 1, 1930 in the Philippines, where his parents, Joel and Bernice Waddell, serving in the military, were stationed. Waddell had a younger sister, Shirlie Lorene. Waddell studied music composition with Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory and converted to Catholicism in 1949. On August 2, 1950 he entered the novitiate at the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani and made solemn vows there on November 1, 1955; his name in religion was Chrysogonus. Priestly ordination followed on May 31, 1958, after which Fr. Chrysogonus was sent for doctoral studies to the Roman Benedictine Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm.
 This was the beginning of his life's work as an internationally respected scholar of the Cistercian liturgy and the Order's history. A founding editor of "Liturgy OSCO", his more than 100 publications on Cistercian liturgy set the tone for a generation.
As was the case with his confrere Thomas Merton, Waddell lived for decades as a hermit, not in the monastic enclosure. Yet he still served as Regens chori (conductor of the choir) and accompanied festive liturgies on the organ. He contributed intensely to his abbey's liturgical reforms after the Second Vatican Council, translating many texts from Latin into English. He was a member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) and a sought-after speaker at conferences in the USA and abroad.
He died at the abbey infirmary on November 23, 2008, the Feast of Christ the King. His working papers are on file at the Western Michigan University Library's Special Collections.
Waddell's a cappella choral piece “Rosa Mystica”, sung by the University of Notre Dame Folk Choir, is featured in the final scene of the film “Lady Bird”.
Publications.
Waddell published five books, more than 175 articles, and many introductions to the works of medieval Cistercian writers.