Catholic Review of: The Heresy of Formlessness

The Heresy of Formlessness, the Roman Liturgy and its Enemy, is not the kind of book I would ever pick up to read “just because.” Rather, my spiritual director told me to read it; so in obedience, I bought it. Then I laid it aside because the black cover itself put me off.

It needn’t have. Once I finally started reading, I could hardly put it down. Martin Mosebach, a German novelist, modestly says he is no theologian, but while not being formerly trained as one, he certainly has an understanding of the theology of the Catholic Mass. Mosebach, like many children of the 50s and 60s, was raised a Catholic and then left the Church in his late teens. He was old enough to have experienced the pre-conciliar Mass, and like many of his era, had served as an altar boy at the side of the parish priest. When he finally returned to the Church, everything had changed drastically and he could hardly believe what he experienced in the new Mass.

He addresses everything in the Mass from the orientation of the priest/celebrant toward the people, to the banal music, and including the elimination of many of the prayers which had formerly been said. Indeed, it was not only a break in liturgy, but also in the physical surroundings where the Mass was celebrated. When he finally returned to the Church, he found older style churches which had been renovated, rendering them sterile and in some cases, downright ugly. The new churches being built looked like the secular buildings around them. Gone was the beauty of the Mass as experienced with all the senses---the smells and bells, the beautiful vestments and the sound of Gregorian chant echoing through the churches which had been built with the entire liturgy in mind.

He links ugliness with untruth, saying that “the doctrine of supposedly ‘inner values’ hidden under a dirty and decrepit shell is something I find highly suspicious.” In other words, the formlessness which he sees in the new churches and the Mass is indicative of a lack of truth. A Latin phrase used in the Church is lex orandi, lex credendi, (the law of prayer is the law of belief). What this means is that how one worships (prays) is a reflection of what one believes, and as one prays, one believes. That is important because what Mosebach is saying in this book is that as our worship has changed, the Faith itself has been changed. The deposit of Faith that has been entrusted to the Catholic Church has been corrupted and this is manifested in the way we worship.

While many people of his same era welcomed the changes in the Mass of Paul VI, many others have either left the Church all together or they find themselves going to Mass and leaving dissatisfied. Their old connection with the Mass has been severed. Mosebach speaks to that and makes a strong case for the return of the pre-conciliar Tridentine Mass. He shares many insights into the theology of the Mass which explain every action of the liturgy and why those actions should not be tampered with.

Not all people who are dissatisfied with the current form of the Mass are clamoring for a return of the old. In fact, there are many who are calling for a “reform of the reform,” in which the best of the former Mass would influence the so-called Novus Ordo. Whatever side the reader is on, he can’t help but learn more about his faith and its expression in the liturgy by reading Martin Mosebach’s The Heresy of Formlessness.