Innocent Smith, O.P., feels perfectly at home among the colorful bindings that line the Medieval Institute Library on the seventh floor of the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library. Books aren’t just how he does his research — they’re the subject of his research, as well.
As a Dominican priest, Fr. Smith views liturgy not merely as a ritual, but as a profound and tangible intersection of heaven and earth, drawing on art, music, and the full spectrum of human expression. Liturgy — the public, communal act of worship and sacrament in the Catholic Church — “takes in everything that it means to be human, as well as everything that God wants to reveal to us,” he said.
That theological conviction forms the bedrock of his scholarly focus — the history of medieval liturgical books.
Fr. Smith joined the Department of Theology as an assistant professor this year, after teaching at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore. His intellectual journey began at Notre Dame as an undergraduate studying music and philosophy, continued when he entered the Order of Preachers after graduation in 2008 and was ordained a priest in 2015, then furthered when he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Regensburg in Germany.
“Looking back on my time in seminary, pastoral ministry, and doctoral studies, I have been blessed to experience a fruitful intersection of study, prayer, and ministry,” he said. “Celebrating the liturgy inspires me to try to understand the history and theology of the liturgy more deeply, and my research has often enabled me to come to the liturgy with a renewed understanding of the mysteries of the Church.”
His work centers on the historical interconnection between the law of prayer (lex orandi) and the law of belief (lex credendi), the principle that the way Christians worship forms their beliefs. He studies historical examples of how Christian worship traditions have dynamically influenced theological understanding, demonstrating that this interaction is not a niche topic but a universal process that every Christian participates in.
A key example of this is found in his current study of St. Thomas Aquinas, who is often mischaracterized as a purely abstract, reason-driven thinker. Fr. Smith’s research, however, reveals how deeply liturgical the theologian’s entire life and work truly was. He has found evidence that Aquinas’ idea of who God is — particularly as a merciful being — is profoundly shaped by his liturgical experience, as he repeatedly quotes liturgical prayers about God’s mercy throughout his texts.
“The way we pray influences how we believe, and the way we believe influences how we pray,” he said.
An object and an instrument
Fr. Smith’s method for answering this central question is intensely material and interdisciplinary. Fr. Smith specializes in the history of liturgical books, including missals and medieval manuscripts, and how their physical structure and artistic composition contribute to their theological content.
He is fascinated by the book as a whole entity, moving beyond the traditional scholarly tendency to study text, art, or physicality in isolation.
“I’m interested in how all of these things fit together, how the book is an object as well as, in a sense, an instrument,” Fr. Smith said.
His doctoral research and monograph, for example, focused on the “Bible missal” — a type of book that combined texts for Mass with biblical texts — illuminating how profoundly biblical the liturgy of the Middle Ages was. He argues that the complementary nature of the liturgical and scriptural texts within those manuscripts “underscores the deep continuity between scriptural revelation and the sacraments of the Church.”
“One thing I want to do is to empower the students to pursue their own research and their own interests in a way that is academically serious."
That research emphasis directly informs his teaching. In his doctoral seminar on medieval liturgy, Fr. Smith brings graduate students into the Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books & Special Collections to pore over original medieval manuscripts. He emphasizes that this hands-on study is crucial and reinforces the concept that liturgy is central to the Church's historical worship and self-understanding.
By interacting with the physical manuscripts, Fr. Smith believes, students can appreciate the integrated beauty of the books and ultimately interpret critical editions and digital facsimiles more responsibly.
“One thing I want to do is to empower the students to pursue their own research and their own interests in a way that is academically serious,” he said.
Notre Dame provides the ideal environment to propel Fr. Smith’s research forward by offering unparalleled resources and a unique sense of institutional continuity. His early love for liturgical studies — specifically medieval chant — was fostered at Notre Dame, and he was particularly inspired by professors Calvin Bower, Alexander Blachly, and Sabine MacCormack.
Today, working alongside some of these same scholars, he is diving deeper into the Gregorian tradition — a well-researched and practiced area in the Sacred Music at Notre Dame program.
“Singing Gregorian chant allows for a kind of meditation on the words of scripture in a very intense way, and sometimes the musical elements will bring out hidden depths of the texts themselves,” Fr. Smith said.
He also examines the broader cultural impact of this music tradition by highlighting potential connections between the liturgical practice of song and the early development of opera in Western culture.
A renewal and an inspiration
Beyond the academic collaboration, Fr. Smith’s return highlights the University's long-standing support. As an undergraduate discerning his vocation, Notre Dame provided crucial research grants to study early manuscripts in Philadelphia and Rome — experiences that laid the groundwork for his Dominican priesthood and academic career.
He plans to continue this legacy and foster a learning environment in which students can pursue their own deeply rooted interests.
“All of my personal life as a Dominican friar and my academic work as a professor really merge in this celebration of the liturgy and the study of it,” he said.
Fr. Smith hopes his ongoing work will shed light on how the Church’s diverse liturgical traditions continue to shape contemporary faith. He acknowledges that history alone cannot solve modern problems, but it can provide vital resources and inspiration for current debates.
“The study of the past can be a source of renewal, as well as a source of inspiration,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of restoring some ideal past, but rather we take inspiration from a variety of sources and figure out what is appropriate today.”
Liturgy has both a past and a future, and by studying the diversity of medieval liturgical practices, Fr. Smith hopes his work will help show the creative dynamic between tradition and innovation that has characterized every era of growth in the Church's life.
“There’s a beautiful line in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” he said, “about how there are different forms of liturgy because no single form of the liturgy can exhaust the entire mystery of Christ.”
Originally published by at al.nd.edu on December 08, 2025.