A Review of 'The Heresy of Formlessness'

Yet another book I wish I could afford to buy, then read and write my own review!

From The Society of St Hugh of Cluny 

The Heresy of Formlessness. The Roman Liturgy and its Enemy, by Martin Mosebach, Foreword by Robert Spaemann, translated by Graham Harrison, Revised and Expanded Edition, (Angelico Press, Brooklyn, N.Y. 2018)

This year we welcome a new edition of a book that is, for the Catholic Traditionalist, one of the most basic books of all. Since 2002, The Heresy of Formlessness has remained the best introductory text to Catholic Traditionalism. It provides the substantive reasons for adhering to the Old Rite. Instead of the usual Roman Catholic focus on legal questions of validity and authority, this book takes as its starting point how the Mass – Traditional, “Novus Ordo” and Eastern – is experienced today. For Mosebach combines a novelist’s gift of depiction with great knowledge – both practical and theoretical – of the liturgy in all its forms.

This new edition is a revision of the previous 2006 translation published by Ignatius Press, augmented by six essays, some of which have been published (and translated) before. Jettisoned is Fr Fessio’s unique foreword which criticized the very book it was introducing. But much has changed since 2002 when The Heresy of Formlessness first appeared in German! In those years, the Traditional liturgy – especially in Germany – was very much an underground phenomenon, the province of “outsiders.” Today, especially in the United States in the wake of Summorum Pontificum, the Traditional Mass can be encountered more or less frequently – often celebrated with great ceremony and splendor.

This edition has a new, important foreword by Robert Spaemann – to whom the book is dedicated.  Spaemann outlines for us the German context of The Heresy of Formlessness. In Germany, the opposition of the clergy to the Traditional Liturgy remains fierce and unbroken to the present day. Moreover, the spirit of progressivism has maintained absolute, quasi-totalitarian dominance In Germany for decades now. Spaemann illustrates this with examples of the Novus Ordo liturgies he has experienced everywhere. Given such a closed, asphyxiating environment, in 2002 Mosebach’s book broke all the taboos. Mosebach opened a discussion on the liturgy that the establishment has not been able to silence since.

I don’t see the need to say anything more on the main thrust of this book beyond what I wrote in my original 2003 review.  The new essays in this edition are gems. Consider “Why the Holy Mass must be Sung.” Mosebach starts from the soft fluttering of flights of starlings over Rome, proceeds to considerations on the participation of angels in the liturgy, then draws on the Byzantine liturgy to illustrate how the congregation “represents” the angels – who sing – all leading to and supporting the conclusion that the primary form of the Mass is the sung liturgy! Or “The Last Gospel” where Mosebach argues that its appearance at the end of the mass in the 13th century coincided with the perfection of Eucharistic devotion in the Corpus Christ liturgy of St Thomas Aquinas. This Eucharistic devotion created a renewed focus the Incarnation – it was thus fitting that St John’s Gospel should be read at the end of every mass, where Christ has appeared again. Moreover:

“Those who are committed to the Last Gospel will not agree, either, with the widely accepted custom of permitting the congregation to sing a hymn while this Gospel is being read.  It makes sense for the acolytes to take their places at the foot of the altar during the reading of the Last Gospel in the same way that the Gospel of the day does. As a text that is constantly being read and that many people know by heart, the prologue of St John can be read (un)self-consciously sotto voce while the members of the congregation follow it in their missals. The aim of the prologue is contemplation, the retrospective beholding of a lived reality. At the end of Mass there should be an appropriate silence, as during the confession of sin at its beginning.”

Here we see Mosebach drawing out the meaning of details that even in current celebrations of the Traditional Liturgy are often given summary treatment. But, at the same time, does this discussion not show how far we have come from the days when an indifferently celebrated Low Mass was the best we could hope for? For nowadays in most places the goal is not just survival of the Roman liturgy but to make it as perfect as our poor human efforts can achieve. Let us not delude ourselves: even in the United States the Traditional liturgy remains suspect to the establishment, an anxiously monitored phenomenon. And I do not have to review for the readers of this blog developments elsewhere.  But despite all these shadows, we can affirm that what Martin Mosebach in The Heresy of Formlessness celebrated, predicted and advocated as a lone voice in 2002 has to a not inconsiderable extent been realized. Those who have not read this book owe it to themselves to do so!