To Restore the Liturgy

Martin Mosebach’s analysis of the liturgical crisis in the Church and his plea for the return of the Traditional Rite has made a great stir since its launch last year. Father Henry Soulby welcomes it wholeheartedly. The Heresy of Formlessness: the Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy by Martin Mosebach, pb, Ignatius Press, £12.50. (Available from Family Publications, 6A King Street, Jericho, Oxford OX2 6DF. Tel: 0845 0500 879, and also Southwell Books via their web site or Tel: 01823 401193).

Let’s not beat around the bush. This is one of the most powerful and elegantly written books about the Sacred Liturgy that I have read. This may come as a surprise because a book originally published in German with the title, Haeresie der Formlosigkeit, suggests a heavy impenetrable tome. Part of the reason for its success is the identity of the author: Martin Mosebach, an award-winning novelist, poet and scriptwriter and a regular contributor to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The fact that he writes as an artist rather than a liturgist perhaps explains the book’s unique quality. Mosebach’s artistic sensibilities allow him to glide gracefully between Scripture, theology, history, literature and music and form a comprehensive appreciation of the liturgy.

The book is essentially a collection of essays and impressions, including an extract from one of his novels, A Long Night, and a moving description of a visit to Fontgombault Abbey.

Part of the book’s charm is that it is not just another rant about the liturgical changes of the last forty years, trotting out the familiar arguments and horror stories. It goes beyond ranting and captures the very spirit and beauty of the liturgy. Indeed, Mosebach seems to regret that he has to write such a book: “Perhaps the greatest damage done by Pope Paul VI’s reform of the Mass…is this: we are now positively obliged to talk about the liturgy.” We all become liturgical experts; worst of all, we become critics – “I go to church to see God and come away like a theatre critic.” In the past, Mosebach suggests, the liturgy simply happened. What the priest said and sang was “not so important. What was important was the impression that he was doing something.” And that something was done using a timeless form.

The ‘heresy of formlessness’ refers to Mosebach’s assertion that “a loss of form implies a loss of content.” The author confesses to being, like this reviewer and (I suspect) most readers, “one of those naïve folk who look at the surface, the external appearance of things, in order to judge their inner nature, their truth, or their spuriousness…If in ordinary life, ugliness shows us the presence of untruth, in the realm of religion it may indicate something worse.”

Mosebach laments the loss of so much of the form of the liturgy over the last half century. He is saddened that the Novus Ordo is dependent on “a good and holy priest to perform it” because “it is not something that happens by good fortune or as the result of a personal charism or merit.” He deplores the way the Missa Normativa was created by a committee, for authentic developments in the liturgy “emerge into consciousness only after generations” – indeed, the Traditional Rite is, in a sense, “begotten, not created”.

Intriguingly, he puts great significance on the smallest of rubrical details. The cushion on which the Missal rests, for example, is compared to a royal throne or even the ‘cushion-filled divan’ of the Sultan. The dutiful MC pointing to the book – or, indeed, the presbyter assistens using a ‘pointing-stick’ – manifests the “celebrant’s submission to the traditional order of prayer: it is not something created by him.”

Some of his criticisms may not be welcomed by every reader. He makes the valid point that “the liturgy has no gaps, it is one single great canticle.” However, he sees the sermon as an unfortunate point of rupture in the flow of the Mass, though he admits there is no ideal solution to the problem. Moreover, he does not favour the use of vernacular hymns: “the sound of hundreds of people singing smothered the liturgy and obscured what was going on at the altar.”

Mosebach favours Gregorian Chant, an art-form made to fit perfectly into the liturgy and which is always ‘relevant’. “What the bishops forgot,” he writes, “was that this music had sounded strange even to the ears of Charlemagne and Thomas Aquinas, Monteverdi and Haydn: it was at least as remote from their contemporary life as it is from ours – for we find it much easier to tune in to the music of other cultures than people of earlier times did.”

A reviewer could go on quoting the many memorable lines and fascinating arguments. Mosebach’s conclusion is that “to preserve the liturgy,…is to restore it.” Whatever form Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio eventually takes, it is to be hoped that this enlightening and accessible book will do much to rebuild the Church’s badly scarred liturgical edifice.

[Taken from "Mass of Ages" August 2007, The Latin Mass Society's quarterly magazine]