By Gary Topping–
As anyone who read my blog last week about Christian Science can easily deduce, I am a great lover of what we call Tradition in the Church—the collective wisdom accumulated over two millennia as our understanding of the nature of the Christian message and its application to secular conditions has developed and evolved. Thank God we don’t have to go it alone or start from scratch whenever we are confronted with some novel scriptural interpretation or moral dilemma; chances are more than good that the Church has already been there. It’s not that we are always obligated to accept the Church’s position, but it sure is nice to have a starting point.
Thinking about that Tradition and the continuity it represents in Catholic history and teaching, I am led back to one of my favorite writers in the early Church, St. Justin the Martyr. Justin was born a pagan around the beginning of the second century, converted to Christianity at an early age, wrote treatises explaining and defending Catholic beliefs (most of which are now lost), and was martyred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius about 165. Reading his First Apology, which he wrote in about the year 150, one is struck by two things: his description of the liturgy of the Mass, which in its basic form is virtually identical to the Mass we celebrate today, and his clear and uncompromising statement of the theology of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. This week we deal only with his description of the liturgy. Consider the following:
The Liturgy of the Word: “And so on the day called Sunday there is an assembly in one place of all who live in the cities or the country; the memorials of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time allows.”
The homily: “After the reader has finished, the presiding officer verbally instructs and exhorts us to imitate these shining examples.”
The prayers of the faithful: “Then we all rise and pray together.”
The Liturgy of the Eucharist: “Next, . . .when we finish the prayer, bread, wine and water are brought up. The presiding officer once again offers up prayers of thanksgiving according to his strength, and then the people cry out ‘amen.’ Then there is a distribution and partaking of what has been blessed with the Eucharistic prayer, and the deacons bring a share to those who are not present.”
Even the collection (can you believe it?): “Those who are wealthy and those who wish each offer a donation according to their choice, and what is collected is brought to the presiding officer and with this he assists . . . all who may be in want.”
I submit that if St. Justin were alive today and could overcome the language problem, he would feel right at home next Sunday at St. Ambrose Church in Salt Lake City.
Note, too, that in the Liturgy of the Word they were reading from what we today call both the Old and New Testaments. Although the modern canon of Scripture was not finalized until the Council of Nicea in 325, already by the turn of the second century that canon, with few exceptions, was pretty much agreed upon.
Finally, I point out that St. Justin is presenting this liturgy as an ongoing practice. When it began to take the present form he does not say, but I think it not altogether unreasonable to speculate that it could have dated back as far as the apostolic era, which ended about the year 90. Continuity indeed!
