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THE PLACE OF TRADITION AND
TRADITIONS
Reading 1, Second Thessalonians 2:1-3, 14-16
2 please do not be too easily thrown into confusion or
alarmed by any manifestation of the Spirit or any
statement or any letter claiming to come from us, suggesting that the Day of
the Lord has already
arrived.
3 Never let anyone deceive you in any way. It cannot
happen until the Great Revolt has taken place and there has appeared the wicked
One, the lost One,
14 Through our gospel he called you to this so that you
should claim as your own the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions
that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father
who has given us his love and, through his grace, such ceaseless encouragement
and such sure hope,
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 96:10, 11-12, 13
10 Say among the nations, 'Yahweh is king.' The world is
set firm, it cannot be moved. He will judge the
nations with justice.
11 Let the heavens rejoice and earth be glad! Let the sea
thunder, and all it holds!
12 Let the countryside exult, and all that is in it, and
all the trees of the forest cry out for joy,
13 at Yahweh's approach, for he is coming, coming to judge
the earth; he will judge the
world with saving justice, and the nations with constancy.
Gospel, Matthew 23:23-26
23 'Alas for you, scribes and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay your tithe of mint and dill and cummin and
have neglected the weightier matters of the Law-justice, mercy, good faith!
These you should have practised, those not neglected.
24 You blind guides, straining out gnats and swallowing
camels!
25 'Alas for you, scribes and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of cup and dish and leave the
inside full of extortion and intemperance.
26 Blind Pharisee! Clean the inside of cup and dish first so
that it and the outside are both clean.
THE
PLACE OF TRADITION AND TRADITIONS
What is the place of
tradition in our faith?
In the scripture readings, we seem to have an apparent contradictory view
towards tradition. St Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians reminds the
Christians to “stand firm … and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether
by word of mouth or by letter.” In the mind of St Paul, the observance of
both written and oral traditions are necessary in order to keep the Spirit of
the Christian Faith.
Indeed, it is because of
this that the Church speaks of tradition in two senses, namely, that of
active and passive tradition. Active tradition refers to the act of
handing on the faith; and passive tradition refers to what is handed on.
The very word “tradition” simply means to hand on. With respect to what
is handed on, the Church teaches that the Gospel is to be the source of all
saving truth and moral discipline. The gospel does not mean simply the
written but the total message of Christ, the ‘good news’ of salvation, which
includes everything the apostles knew about the person, actions and words of
Christ.
Consequently, revelation
is concerned with the whole person of Jesus Christ. It is founded not
only in the message of Christ but in the whole encounter of His person.
It thus embraces both what is said and what is unsaid as it concerns the whole
being of Christ, His person and message. That is why Pope Benedict in his
encyclical “God is love” wrote, “Being Christian is not the result of an
ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person,
which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” The truth is
that no words can ever capture the person. Hence St John says at the end
of his gospel, “But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were
every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not
contain the books that were written.” (Jn 21:25)
How is this done if not
through both the oral and written transmission? With respect to the oral
transmission, “This was faithfully done: it was done by the apostles who handed
on, by the spoken word of their preaching, by the example they gave, by the
institutions they established.” (Dei Verbum 7) What is handed on by
the Apostles is all-embracing. It includes everything needed for living the
Christian life, as well as for the growth of the Christian faith. What is
handed on, then, is not merely a doctrine but an entire way of life. Hence it
is the Church itself, in everything that it is as well as in everything that it
believes – in its teaching, life and liturgy – which is the full embodiment of
Tradition. What the process of Tradition perpetuates is the Church
herself.
With regard to the
written transmission, it is through the written scriptures. The scriptures were written by
those apostles and other men associated with the apostles who, under the
inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to
writing what they themselves had received – whether from the lips of Christ,
from His way of life and His works, or whether they had learned it at the
prompting of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it is clear that “Sacred Tradition and
sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with
the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine
well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards
the same goal.” (Dei Verbum 9) Nevertheless, the Church also recognizes
the special place of Scripture because of its qualitative advantage over Oral
Tradition. The difference between Scripture and Oral Tradition however lies not
in that one contains more or less of revelation but that of the quality of
inspiration.
Tradition therefore
belongs essentially to the social and historical existence for all human
beings. It is
synonymous with culture. Human life is unthinkable without the element of
tradition. Every race, society, community, organization, church and
religion preserves its spirit, values and beliefs through the passing on of
tradition. Even Christian churches of different denominations have to
live by their traditions. Tradition molds and shapes us in the way we
live and express ourselves. It serves to ensure a society’s continuity,
identity and unity. Without tradition, we would have lost our identity,
culture and values. So traditions cannot be done away with in human life.
The basis for holding to tradition is based on the incarnational reality of
tradition. God reveals Himself to us through humanity and human history.
Christian tradition is both truly human and divine. God communicates
invariably through and within the whole historical, social and traditional
context of earthly life.
Those who are negative
towards tradition are more often than not concerned with those traditions that
have been corrupted and distorted over time, so much so that they are no longer
effective vehicles to convey the spirit of the organization. Quite often, those extreme
conservatives who crave for the nostalgic past, are resentful of the present
and dreadful of the future, are given the derogatory term “traditional”.
That means they idealize the past and old experiences in an excessive and
unrealistic way. Yet it is important to note that those who challenge or
reject traditions can never do so completely because no one can break away from
their past or deny that they too are a product of the past. Even when
traditions are modified, they are very much rooted in the old. For this
reason, many of the practices in doctrines and in liturgy taught and celebrated
since time immemorial in the Catholic Church are adopted and modified by Protestant
Christian communities.
It is within this context
that Jesus provides us the guidelines in evaluating and renewing traditions.
He reprimanded the scribes and Pharisees for overlooking “the weightier matters
of the Law – justice, mercy, good faith!” We must distinguish the
essentials of traditions and those non-essential expressions of
traditions. What we cannot compromise would be those fundamentals of our
faith e.g. the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit,
the Church and its institutions, the Sacraments, etc. Such matters are
non-negotiable and they are classified as Tradition, in singular and in upper
case. What we need to examine and be prudent would be the secondary
expression of traditions (plural and in lower case). Like the scribes and
Pharisees, we can be so concerned about cultural practices and expressions of
our faith, which we fight over, and forget the more salient matters of our
faith, which is justice, compassion and love that Jesus mentioned in the
gospel. Many of us are debating, fighting and slandering each other over
non-essential issues resulting in the division within the Church or in our
Church organizations. Once again, we should bear in mind the advice of St
Augustine who said, “Unity in essentials. Diversity in
non-essentials. In all things, charity.”
It behooves us therefore,
whether in religion, in religious practices and even in the organizations we
are in, to preserve the unity of the organization and most of all, the
spirit in and by which we have come together. The gospel in the case
of the Christian faith is what we must preserve at all costs. In the
organization, it is the spirit that gives rise to the vision and mission that
we seek to perpetuate and realize. The saddest reality is that often, in
churches and among members of organizations, we are divided over petty issues
and practices. This is of course true even in family life when we pick
quarrels with our spouse or children over disagreement in our taste for food,
movies and clothing.
In the final analysis, what
is of absolute importance is the promotion of love and charity. As
Pope John Paul II in his encyclical, “Novo Millennio Inenunte” wrote, “Many
things are necessary for the Church’s journey through history, not least in this
new century; but without charity (agape), all will be in vain. It is again the
Apostle Paul who in the hymn to love reminds us: even if we speak the tongues
of men and of angels, and if we have faith “to move mountains”, but are without
love, all will come to “nothing” (cf. 1 Cor 13:2). Love is truly the “heart” of
the Church, as was well understood by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.
So the warning of Jesus
is directed to us all.
He said, “These you should have practised, without neglecting the others. …
Straining out gnats and swallowing camels… You who clean the outside of cup and
dish and leave the inside full of extortion and intemperance. Blind
Pharisees! Clean the inside of cup and dish first so that the outside may
become clean as well.” By all means try to preserve the small traditions,
but let us keep the essentials first above all else. We can have the most
beautiful laws and rules but if the community is divided and lacking in
charity, then we would have failed. In all things, let us be guided by
justice and compassion. Only then, do we fulfill the one and only
commandment, love of God and neighbor and ourselves. This is the Spirit
of the gospel.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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