The Heresy of Formlessness

CONTENTS

Foreword by Robert Spaemann  xiii

1. Eternal Stone Age  1

2. Liturgy—Lived Religion  11

3. Does Christianity Need a Liturgy?  33

4. “Tear the Images out of Their Hearts”: Liturgy and the Campaign against Images  45 

5. Tradition’s Avant-Garde: The Benedictines of Fontgombault  59

6. Liturgy is Art  67 

7. Statio: Before Entering the Cathedral  81

8. Kneeling, Standing, and Walking: A Correct Understanding of “Active Participation”  89

9. On the Confiteor of the Old Rite  101

10. Solemn High Mass  105

11. Why Holy Mass Must Be Sung  109

12. The Last Gospel  117

13. A Cathedral in a Nutshell: The Missal of Trent  121

14. “This is my Body”: On Veneration of the Sacrament of the Altar in the Catholic Church  135

15. Revelation through Veiling in the Old Roman Catholic Liturgy  149

16. The Holy Mass Celebrated in Ruins  159

17. On the Occasion of the 90th Birthday of Benedict XVI  175

18. The Procession through the Sliding Door—A Passage from the Novel A Long Night  189