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61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Essential Form of Roman Rite Catholic Liturgy, December 20, 2006
This review is from: Heresy of Formlessness (Paperback)
Saint John's Gospel records the ultimate entry of God into history with those beautiful words: "The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us." There is no Christianity without Jesus Christ made man, without Christ truly taking human form. Christian faith is utterly contingent upon the Incarnation.
It logical, then, that Christian worship is itself incarnational - it embraces the senses in coveying through its rites and prayers the graces brought to us by God incarnate. Naturally, it has done this in different ways throughout history, and the manner of Christian worship has developed over time.
The reforms in Western Catholic Liturgy in the latter half of the twentieth century have provoked controversy. Were they an act of positivist papal tyranny that destroyed the form of the Liturgy, or were they a legitimate refinement and development of it?
Mosebach - a German layman of some literary renown - holds the former. He maintains that the form, the incarnation of the Catholic faith in Roman rite Liturgy has been so badly mutilated in recent generations as to prejudice the celebration and transmission of the faith itself. Hence his use of the strident term "heresy." He is, of course, not alone in this conviction. But his perspective is of interest. He is no professional theologian or liturgist. He is an educated layman, a man of letters, who drifted away from the Church as the Mass of Paul VI engulfed it and who returned, gradually, through the rediscovery of the traditional Liturgy.
The book brings together a series of essays whose underlying thesis is that the form of the Traditional Liturgy is essential for Roman rite Catholics - spiritually and theologically - and that it should be restored. Were Mosebach a professional theologian he may have discussed this in relation to Von Balthasar's theology (a link is plausable). His reflections are personal, but are, perhaps, all that much more valuable for that. Many will identify with his struggles and desires.
Father Fessio's preface to the book is curious - it seems (most respectfully) to oppose the author's thesis. And the English edition apparently omits some of the stronger passages of the German original. But its publication is a sign that the cry for the restoration of the traditional Roman liturgy which it espouses is no longer regarded as absurd. Mosebach, in entering this debate, has given voice to many laymen who have suffered long and whose desires are not often articulated so clearly. Future generations will wonder why it took us so long to listen.
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51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Postconciliar Work on the Liturgy, January 5, 2007
This review is from: Heresy of Formlessness (Paperback)
If my title seems hyperbole, well, read the book. It is a set of meditations by a writer--reflections on the classical liturgy that are not themselves theological or historical arguments, but are nonetheless profound, moving, and often beautiful. I am reminded of the work on the liturgy by another layman, Dietrich von Hildebrand (Liturgy and Personality). As that great Catholic layman philosopher might have said: we do not dissect the gift of the liturgy. Rather, we receive it as the great gift it is, and we open to it and respond to its value.
Much thanks to Ignatius Press for publishing the English translation of this work. I am grateful to Father Fessio, though respectfully, his introduction is off the mark. He simply asserts that a "via media" can be accomplished: a "reforming" of the 1970 liturgy that would make it look as much as possible like the preconciliar one. It won't work simply because the 1970 rite (and I am not contesting its validity in any way) is already the work of a committee, a "fabrication."
Mosebach's book is, in a sense, a culmination of decades of work by the laity. It is supremely ironic that the Second Vatican Council triggered a liturgical revival, but among laymen and for the preconciliar rite! As a result of the disastrous Pauline reforms, laymen have become "amateur experts" on the liturgy. We have spent countless hours reading works by the likes of Dom Gueranger, Adrian Fortescue, Joseph Jungmann, Odo Casel, Michael Davies, Klaus Gamber, Catherine Pickstock, Louis Bouyer, and yes, Joseph Ratzinger--all on the liturgy! We have read, studied, and debated --and all to deepen our understanding of the preconciliar rite and sadly to learn that so much of the postconciliar reform foisted on us was Orwellian, dishonest, ignoble.
Martin Mosebach, who reads as if he is a spiritual son of Dom Gueranger, is our spokesman. He has written the book on liturgy for this generation.
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Take and read!, December 22, 2006
This review is from: Heresy of Formlessness (Paperback)
Martin Mosebach, a well-known and award-winning German novelist and essayist, has published novels, stories, and collections of poems; he has also written scripts for several films, opera libretti, theatre, and radio plays. He is a regular contributor to the major German newspapers and magazines, including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Zeit. He has also written for the New York Times. Most recently, Mosebach has been awarded the Großer Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste.
`Heresy of Formlessness' is a collection of essays on the Catholic liturgy and its recent reform, not from the perspective of a theologian, but from the perspective of a literary writer. The effect the book had in Germany can hardly be overstated; 'Heresy of Formlessness' helped to bring the debate on the Catholic liturgy into a wider public. A French translation was published last year, with a preface by the noted German philosopher Robert Spaemann.
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