TRADITION FOR CATHOLICS

From mince pies and fairy lights at Christmas and chocolate eggs at Easter with space in between for ashes in Lent preceded by pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, everyone knows what tradition is about. With the expansion of commercial interest in the mix, we have no chance of forgetting to prepare ourselves for any event, either spiritual or secular that marks our calendars.

When it comes to Church matters the same principle is usually applied. That’s the way we always do things here. For some Catholics, examples of normal pious practices are perhaps a pilgrimage to Knock or Lough Derg; gaining a blessing with a sacred relic whenever this is available; perhaps being part of a prayer group or bible study group or attending Mass at the site of a Mass rock. Most parishes have a way of remembering the deceased in a ceremony of Blessing of Graves, sometimes known as the Pattern Day or Cemetery Sunday and there are many other commendable devotional practices undertaken that carry distinct marks of Catholicism.

And yet, that is not what the Church means by Tradition.

Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Cong, in his new book “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic; From the Church of the Apostles to the ‘Synodal’ Church” reminds us in no uncertain terms that Jesus Christ desired to build his Church on the apostles: “whoever hears you, hears me.” We are not a religion made up of devotions or a religion of the book; we are founded on the apostles and the authority given to them by Jesus. The elderly cardinal in a most serious manner draws our attention to the importance of Sacred Tradition.

Jesus wanted to build his Church on the apostles, not on a book. The Gospel, written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, should be interpreted in the living Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition, the Creed, and the Magisterium are indispensable elements of the Church. If I say, “I want Christ only in the Gospel. I don’t want Sacred Tradition. I don’t want the Creed. I don’t want the Magisterium,” I don’t have the slightest chance of finding Christ. It is He who wants to be encountered in Sacred Tradition through the Creed and the Magisterium. It is He who has called some men to be instruments of His grace.

The great commission given by Jesus to go and teach all nations was carried out not by relying on written evidence but by word of mouth. From St. Paul we learn that the risen Christ had been seen by over five hundred people, many of whom were still alive at Paul’s time of writing. Christians believe that the stories about the life and teaching of Jesus were told and re-told by the first apostles and their disciples because historical sources testify that the Christian mission spread throughout the known world. This was aided due to infrastructure already established by the Roman Empire. At another time, Paul writes that Sacred Tradition may be handed on orally or by writing. “To this he called you through our Gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thess. 2:14–15).

Tradition, which is expressed especially in the liturgical rites and in the customs of both the eastern and western Church, makes it abundantly clear that, through the imposition of hands and the words of consecration, the grace of the Holy Spirit is given. A sacred character is impressed in such a way that bishops, eminently and visibly, take the place of Christ himself, teacher, shepherd and priest, and act in his person as they in turn ordain the priests who will continue to carry out his work. (Lumen Gentium 21)

Every Sunday at Mass the Catholic congregation proclaims its belief in the Church: “I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” But perhaps because the words are so familiar we can forget to think of what they actually mean. When those outside the Faith question us at times by saying “that’s not in the Bible” how do we answer? Are we confident enough to assert that the practice alluded to form part of the deposit of Faith contained in Sacred Tradition?

God, out of the sheer, gratuitous goodness of his heart, has guaranteed the full integrity of divine revelation being simultaneously preserved and transmitted from one generation of believers to the next. Its fullness is embodied in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the teachings he passed on to his apostles by his words and deeds. The apostles in turn communicated this deposit of faith to others by their words and deeds. Only some of what our Lord said and did they wrote down. “The apostles entrusted the ‘sacred deposit’ of the faith (the depositum fidei), contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 84).

These two sources of divine revelation which make up this one “sacred deposit” are safeguarded and defended by the Sacred Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Church), whose job it is to guarantee the authenticity of the message while at the same time remaining its servant.

We often have to remind ourselves that the bishops are the successors of the apostles. Acts 1:8 and 2:4 and John 20: 22-23 testify to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which enabled the apostles to fulfil the duties commanded by the Lord. In Lumen Gentium (LG) the Fathers of the Council explain that the apostles consecrated their own successors. It is through acknowledging this that we come to see the importance of the oral tradition as the only means by which the story could be passed on.

The importance of Sacred Tradition as distinct from ordinary tradition and pious legend is usually under-estimated. We know from historians that the gospels were written between the years 66 AD and 110 AD. Since Jesus ascended into heaven in 33 AD it would mean for many years there was no written record of his life. The first written account of the Last Supper was twenty-three years later and came not from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John but from Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians which dates from about 56 AD. This is why we must recognise the part played by Sacred Tradition, fundamental to Catholicism.

Dogma protects the freedom of Tradition. The essentials of the faith expressed in doctrine and creeds are seen in the liturgical life of the Church. This is a means of seeing the world that is not communicated by the written word alone. It is also communicated via gesture, especially the gestures of the liturgy. When we fully realise what that freedom means, it should cause relief. We do not for instance have to make up a way of addressing God Almighty in the Liturgy. It has already been decided upon and should never be open to creativity. As regards the Sacraments, the words that bring the Holy Spirit to us are not of our making, nor that of the celebrant. We are free to trust that the teaching of the apostles is preserved for us.

Sacred Tradition, also called holy tradition or apostolic tradition, is a theological term used in Christian theology. According to this theological position, Sacred Tradition and Scripture form one deposit, so Sacred Tradition is the foundation of the doctrinal and spiritual authority of Christianity and of the Bible.