New book by Martin Mosebach

Angelico Press has brought out a new book, a collection of essays, by Martin Mosebach, author of the excellent book The Heresy of Formlessness.

Amazon.co.uk has it here.

I was asked to write a blurb for it, here it is in full.

Martin Mosebach has once more demonstrated his ability to provide provocative insights into the condition of modern Catholicism in this collection of essays. He notes the tension between the liturgical principle, found in East and West, that the rites be "fear-inspiring", and the modern worshipper who "relaxes in an armchair waiting for [God] to arrive". He suggests that the needs of the ordinary believer are satisfied, if at all, in the kitsch products of Lourdes gift-shops, while elite Catholicism offers him an empty aesthetic puritanism. He suggests that the replacement of the monarch with the people, as the holder of sovereignty, makes for fiscal profligacy. He explores the parallel between the prayer wheels of oriental religions with the church bells of European Christianity. These essays are a tonic to our deep-rutted discourse on liturgy, spirituality, and religious sociology, refreshing, challenging, and setting us on new paths of thought.

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