Liturgically Speaking: “I Received from the Lord what I also Handed on to You”

We have in our Catholic tradition certain rote prayers we memorize as children: The Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Gory Be, and others.  Prayer can also be spontaneous, “made up” in our own words.  In one way, the Liturgy is more like the rote prayers we received from our parents as children.  The Liturgy is handed on to us; it is part of our tradition.  We don’t create the Liturgy; we receive the Liturgy as part of the Tradition of our Catholic Faith.

This “handing on” of the Liturgy is already apparent in the first generation of the Church.  St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on (tradidi) to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

The Corinthians were not at liberty to create their public worship in any form they chose.  Its form was handed on to them from Paul, a form he also received from Christ Himself.  This handing on continued in in the early church and beyond.  Consider this description of Catholic worship from St. Justin Martyr from around 155 AD.  See if any of this sounds familiar:

“And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons.” 

Hopefully you can see echoes of our Sunday Mass already in this second century description of the Mass.  That which was handed on to Paul from the Lord, which he handed on to the Corinthians, that which was handed on to St. Justin Martyr, has also been handed on through the ages to us.

We celebrate the Liturgy as we do because it is part of our Tradition, handed on to us – a kind of family heirloom.  We can no more arbitrarily change the Liturgy that we can add new books to the Bible, or a fourth Person to the Trinity.  The Liturgy is not our construction.  There is nothing more antithetical to the spirit of the Liturgy than some committee or liturgist “creatively” manufacturing the Liturgy as their own personal product.  The Liturgy is not the property of any group or individual; the Liturgy is a gift faithfully handed on in the Church, uniting us to generations of Christians past, linking us to the saints, martyrs, apostles, and to Christ Himself.