A Review of Mosebach’s "Heresy of Formlessness"

Here is the initial English review of the 2003 German edition of Mosebach’s “Heresy of Formlessness” published in www.catholicreform.org on September 20, 2003. How far we have come at least in some respects – and how prescient was Mosebach in the light of later developments! The Ignatius press translation includes additional material by Mosebach not in this German edition.

The “Haeresie der Formlosigkeit” by Martin Mosebach

By Cedric Echecs

Early this year a book dealing with Catholic tradition and liturgy was prominently and favorably reviewed in the leading German language newspapers. The American observer may be surprised to learn that the work reviewed is neither a summons to ongoing revolution nor a product of clerical academia singing the praises of the status quo. His astonishment would increase when he ascertains that Haeresie der Formlosigkeit makes the most succinct and cogent argument for the traditional Roman rite yet to appear in any language. And this work is the achievement of a novelist, a profound thinker and a “Traditionalist” Catholic!
There certainly have been books examining critically Vatican II and the accompanying liturgical reforms – even if sometimes in a guarded and indirect manner. As you might expect, the most insightful works, the ones that lay bare the intellectual fallacies underlying the whole enterprise, tend to come from the pens of unbelievers and liberals: one thinks of Alfred Lorenzer’s Das Konzil der Buchhalter (1984) or Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars (1992). Yet Martin Mosebach, noted novelist and essayist, writes as an active and unapologetic Roman Catholic. His case for the Roman liturgy derives from his own emerging awareness of Tradition, as a Christian adrift in the Church in the Modern Age.
This short (171 pages!) work is a primarily a collection of essays, some of which Mosebach has previously published or given as lectures. Such a dry description hardly does justice to the author’s intense yet engaging style. His work is a joy to read: when necessary Mosebach drops the essay form to quote one of his own novels or to cite an amazing poem against the architecture of the “Conciliar Church”!
Perhaps it is his method of approaching the subject matter which makes this work unique in the traditional oeuvre. Mosebach starts his analysis not with concepts but by recreating in lucid prose concrete situations familiar to most traditional Catholics. In a large German city, a priest reluctantly goes through the duties of celebrating an indult Mass for a supposedly benighted congregation in the most god-awful chapel the bishop could find. An entirely average, not-too-pretty parish church of around 1900 endures the iconoclasm of the liturgical revolution. A Catholic makes a retreat at Fontgombault to discover not just the traditional liturgy but also a Benedictine world of hospitality, ceremony and courtesy embracing the entire day.
From these experiences, Mosebach builds a series of powerful philosophical arguments for Tradition. His key point, to which the title refers, is the essential importance of form to worship. Mosebach denies the liturgical reformers’ central dogma of an unchanging (?) theological “substance” contrasted with an infinitely fluid form wholly at the disposal of the hierarchy. As an artist he finds it easy to make the case for form, indeed, he repeatedly emphasizes the analogy between liturgy and the perfection of a work of art. Where form is bad we can infer lack of substance. The author has a keen sense for the “little things.” The now discarded preparatory rites for the Mass – the prayers, physical preparation of the altar and vesting rituals prior to the celebration itself – all serve for Mosebach as a revelation of the presence of God, a careful marking off of a holy place. The “repetitive” signs of the Cross during the Canon each are imbued with specific theological meaning. Much in the manner of the Church Fathers, he draws a whole wealth of meditation on the role of Our Lady from the seemingly arid Gospel genealogies of Christ.
There is so much more. Mosebach understands that veiling a mystery is a much more effective means of revealing it (to the extent a mystery can be communicated at all) than to attempt to strip it bare and transmit it through rational discourse. In the Benedictine rituals of prayer and hospitality, Mosebach finds an authentically didactic function of the Traditional rite: gradually to educate each individual to be able to transform the entire day into liturgy. He shows that “active participation” in liturgy is the exact opposite of the current sense of priest and congregation singing and reciting as many things as possible aloud together. The Traditional liturgy allows for many ways of participation for a multitude of different souls.
It is revealing that the author is not one of those nostalgically “attached to” the Traditional rite. His own experience of the Traditional liturgy as a young altar boy in the last years before the Council reforms left him ignorant and indifferent. In common with so many others, he had learned nothing about the Mass beyond a set of arbitrary and irksome rules and duties. The author’s present insights result rather from some thirty years of gradual reflection and his own experience of the Traditional liturgy today as the worship of an obscure and despised minority.
Liturgy is the revelation of God to man. It also is a sacrifice offered to God. Mosebach shows how the objective, impersonal form of the Roman Rite and the Gregorian chant reflects these two truths. He considers how other features added to the liturgy even in the traditional rite – such as the singing of hymns and preaching – detract from the essence of worship. In his understanding of liturgy, Mosebach draws frequent inspiration from the relatively intact tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy.
We may disagree with one or the other of the author’s always creative observations, such as his claim that the priest should utter all liturgical prayer to fully reflect the role of Christ as Mediator. So, for the celebrant to sit down to let the choir sing the Credo or Gloria is a flaw in Mosebach’s eyes – surely a curious and mistaken notion! Yet, when Mosebach critiques the sermon (“homily”) as an unfortunate break in the flow of the liturgical action, let’s remember that those sympathetic unbelievers Mencken and H.P. Lovecraft made exactly the same point more than seventy years ago!
I have said that this work is not polemical, but Mosebach by no means pulls his punches or ducks honest speech about the current situation. No more frank and damning indictment of the sins of the clergy exists than that found in the pages of this work, e.g.: “In ancient times the interruption of a tradition by the ruler was called tyranny. In this sense, Paul VI, a modernizer and believer in Progress, was a tyrant.” Mosebach speaks calmly and fearlessly, without stridency yet free of any need to justify the deeds of ecclesiastical politicians of the past or present.
Mosebach acknowledges that the Roman Rite today is very much a marginalized, disfavored and minority phenomenon. It inhabits isolated chapels and shabby parishes supported by those without wealth or influence in Church or society. Humanly speaking, it would seem that it should disappear with the last generation to have lived it as the sole form of worship in the Western Church. Yet Mosebach’s last message to us is one of hope. He understands that the present (“modern”) age is but a second in relation to eternity, and that the last word has by no means been spoken regarding that form of worship that uniquely corresponds to the religious nature of man. Mosebach’s convictions would seem to lead to another unstated yet inevitable conclusion: the renaissance of the Roman Rite ultimately can only be as a law for the Church, not as a concession to an eccentric minority. These reflections of the author on the future of the Roman Rite, informed by bitter realism yet calmly trusting in Divine providence, are yet another of many virtues which make Haeresie der Formlosigkeit such a rare work.
It would be a crime if a book of this merit were not made available immediately in an adequate translation to the English-speaking public.
Cedric Echecs is a corporate attorney in New York