Approved but not received

“... recalling it (the liturgy) to greater simplicity of rites, by expressing it in the vernacular language or by uttering it in a loud voice’ as if the present order of the liturgy received and approved by the Church, had emanated in some part from the forgetfulness of the principles by which it should be regulated ... (is) rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, favourable to the charges of heretics”

...Auctorem Fidei, Pope Pius VI, 28 August 1794 (D.S. 2633)

Below is an exchange I had with a Novus Ordo priest in social media five years ago.

Father Xxxx: Johnny, here's something I was thinking about today, when you speak of the Novus Ordo as "it is approved but not received*." The argument you seem to be making is that the Latin Mass was received from Jesus or the apostles but not the Novus Ordo. This presumes the Latin Mass exactly as we have it today was celebrated by Jesus, exactly in the same way we have it now. But if this Latin Mass was not celebrated by Jesus exactly as it is structured today, then even this form of the Mass was not exactly "received" from the Jesus and the apostles. A few things or rituals, or symbols, or prayers have been added down the ages. What do you think?

Me:
1. Approved and received: meaning it is licit (authorized) and passed down in a stable form (received) from antiquity. The Missal of St. Pius V is both, and it is also canonized by the Council of Trent and the Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum (1570). It was NOT a new form of liturgy when St. Pius V canonized it; it was at least as old as Pope St. Gregory the Great (+ 604) and even Pope Paul VI admits this in his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum (1970) that promulgates the Novus Ordo (new order) Missal.
2. No one has made the claim that the Novus Ordo is received from tradition. It was in the words of Cardinal Ratzinger, "...fabricated liturgy, a banal, technical on-the-spot production... not organically developed from previous forms..." THIS is the difference between the two liturgies. One is handed down in a stable form from antiquity; the other was invented by liturgical scientists in Fr. Bugnini's Consilium.
3. St. Paul says in 1: Cor. 11,23 that

"For I have RECEIVED of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread..."

This tells us in the very early days of the Church the form of the liturgy was already contained in a form received from Christ. It sets the precedent that men do not invent forms of sacred liturgy. If you recall the entire sacrificial system used in Israel, it was all 100% received by Moses from God by direct revelation - nothing was left to the imagination of men. It was a replica of the heavenly rite. Likewise, we are not permitted to invent our own forms of liturgy as though what has been handed down to us from the Apostles is some how deficient.
4. As the Church organically developed the Mass with minor accretions and modifications, it retained its basic structure and character down through the centuries. We are told by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei that it is wrong to try to recapture what we imagine the primitive form of the liturgy may have looked like:

"62. Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device."

5. The above is the error of antiquinarianism, AKA archeologism. It is condemned in the same encyclical.

A priest distributes holy communion during a Papal Mass, 2013.

6. Lastly, for me, the final straw was the testimony of the Vatican's top exorcist Fr. Gabriele Amorth, who concluded that the Novus Ordo Rite of Exorcism was useless against the demon. This for me brings the efficacy of the entire NO liturgy into question.
7. The fruits do not lie. In 1960 when all liturgy was in Latin, 3 out of 4 American Catholics assisted at Mass at least weekly. Since the new Mass was implemented and the Latin Mass was suppressed in 1970, the percentage has plunged to a mere 25%. Certainly you as a pastor can appreciate this.
I would add that the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy (CSL) Sacrosanctum concilium from Vatican II never mentions abolition of Latin, tearing out altar rails, removal of tabernacles, spinning altars around to face the people, tossing away of chapel veils for women and girls, communion standing and in the hand, EMHCs, altar girls or the introduction of popular music. It calls for Latin Masses with Gregorian Chant having pride of place in liturgy, which we both know has all but disappeared. So please do not insist that all this liturgical revolution is required by Vatican II. Vatican II was extremely imprecise in its verbiage and essay-style texts, and its elasticity has been stretched to bizarre extremes due to passages like the one below from the CSL:

"In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered BEFORE ALL ELSE; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work."

It is very easy to lift this very poorly worded clause out of the CSL to justify just about any liturgical abuse one can imagine, and indeed, that is exactly what has happened.

"We ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties. The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-Holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the Alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers an interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the Totally Other, whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is transformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the Living God but the priest or the liturgical director."
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 1988

There seems to be a lot of misinformation about the development of liturgy out there...

* CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, wont to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin be omitted at pleasure by the ministers, or be changed, by every pastor of the churches, into other new ones; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, Session 7)