The Role of Tradition in the Church

 At the Protestant Reformation took the writings that the Catholic Church had put forward at the Council of Carthage in 419AD as the Word of God and declared they were the only guide to the Christian Faith (Sola Scriptura).   The Catholic Church argued that this was not enough, and that we needed the witness of the Christians over the centuries to ensure that the Truth had been passed down to us today.   This was called Tradition.

I have in my blog over the past year written on Tradition.   I have written and quoted the Early Fathers on what they believed about the celebrating the Mass and how they described the consecrated host as the Flesh of Jesus, and condemned those who would not receive communion because they did not believe the consecrated host was changed.    I have quoted Justin Martyr, not only on this, but on how the early Christians did not divorce after marriage but followed the teaching of Christ and that those who did not marry remained chaste for the rest of their lives.   Yes I read books on the Early Church but I found that if I went to my computer the same stories were repeated when I put the name of the saints in the search engine.    That what I relate is true, is beyond question.

Yet many in the Church, bishops, priests, and lay people, desire another Christ that will fit into the world they live in.   They want the Commandments relaxed, they want another Mass, but most of all they do not want to be contradicted.   They claim that those who stick to the past are 'rigid', and make too much of sin.    But you only feel a sorrow for sin according to how much you love Jesus.   So Peter felt a great sorrow when he refused to acknowledge Jesus at his trial, and when the cock crowed for the third time he realised what he had done and wept.    I probably would have justified myself that it got me out of a sticky situation, but I am not Peter nor do I yet have his love.

The problem also is that some have approached Christianity from a secular point of view.    It is not about prayers and devotions but doing charitable things to help the poor.  From a human point of view this is laudable, but as a Christian you must be fired with the love of Jesus so that your light shines before men and they will give glory to your God.   It can so often become self-fulfilling rather than Christ centred.    Mother Teresa of Calcutta when she started her apostolate to the poor of India, instructed her nuns to spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day so that there work might be blessed.   And always remember that it is to the people of prayer you must come to keep your own apostolate alive through the money they offer.

So we cannot survive without traditionalists.   People who rigidly follow Christ because they love him.   As we have seen through the loss of our young people, sometimes when we are caught up in the way we want the Church to be, we do very foolish things.   I do not know where this Synod is going to go when it starts in our parish.   But we all must ask ourselves deep questions about how we follow Jesus, and pray for the gift of humility.