Scripture & Tradition

September 14, 2014 techdecisions

“Christ the Good Shepherd”, mosaic from the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, ~425 AD

In Catholicism, there are two fonts of revelation, in contrast to Protestantism, I generalize, which only has one, Scripture.

Tradition is one of those, imho, words which doesn’t carry either the full or the correct meaning, imho, through translation to the 21st century American ear.

It is not “we have always done it this way”, rather it is the living and lived experience of living the faith of two millennia of the Church. A living tradition. Wisdom. One informs the other. A unity of living faith, with two doors by which to understand that faith.

What does Scripture say regarding this? What does the experience of the lived and living faith say about this, in light of Scripture? What is the truth we can distill from this contemplation, and from prayer for the grace to understand the Lord’s will for us, now, in this moment? In this instance? What is the Lord saying to his Church, now, in the living moment?

What has worked? What hasn’t? What did God mean by what he said? Where can we recognize truth in our lived experience of the faith both in the initial ancient times up until now? How does our lived experience of the faith now reflect and hold in relation to our ancestral understanding?

It is VERY important to organize, categorize, comprehend, and relate in one’s Catholic mind to the importance and seriousness of different Catholic teachings. Not everything is doctrine or dogma, certainly not everything is personal opinion. One must distinguish and understand between these ends of the spectrum if one even hopes to live a happy and contented Catholic life. Otherwise, only fear, frustration, and confusion result from the ignorance.

Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation “Dei Verbum/Word of God”, Solemnly Promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI, November 18, 1965

“9. Hence there exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence. -cf. Council of Trent, session IV”

https://thesowerreview.org/bishops-page-keeping-truth

-by Bishop Phillip Egan, Bishop of Portsmouth, UK

“When I was a student in Rome, Thursday was our day-off and we’d often go out of the city to explore different places nearby. I’ll never forget going into a magnificent, mediaeval church with an eye-catching mosaic high-up over the altar. It depicted Christ the Good Shepherd, preaching to his disciples; all sat at his feet eagerly listening. But when you got a bit closer, something about the mosaic seemed odd. Why was it that Christ’s rob were not white but dirty-brown? Why were his listeners laughing, some drinking, everyone clearly having a good time? One was fox dressed up as a bishop.

It was only when you stood underneath the mosaic that the dreadful truth slowly dawned on you. This was not Christ at all! It was the False Prophet, Lucifer, the so-called Light-Bearer, the one who looks like Christ, but is anything other. Beware of false prophets who come disguised as sheep but underneath are ravening wolves.

We inhabit a noisy, busy, celebrity culture with many experts competing for our attention. Yet in the Gospel Jesus urges us to be critical, discerning, to sift truth from falsehood, to be sensible people, building our homes not on sand but on the rock of truth.

Where can we find Truth?

We rightly ask: What is true? How can we be sure we have the Truth? Where can we go to find it? We believe Jesus Christ is the Truth. He is God the Son Incarnate, Humanity’s Teacher. He reveals the Truth about God and about life. But how can we be sure even that it is really Him, it really is his Word, it really is what He teaches?

St. Paul gives us two criteria. All Scripture is inspired by God, he says. To know Christ’s teaching, we can turn to the Word of God in the Bible. Yet, as we know, the Bible can mean different things to different people. So Paul adds another criterion: Keep to what you have been taught. In other words, we have to read the Bible but within the Tradition, or we will end up with a subjective opinion not the Truth Christ intended.

But then there’s more. The Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, adds a third element: “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form [the Bible] or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone.” So to know the Truth, we must consult the Bible and Tradition as interpreted by the Church’s authority. This triad of Scripture-Tradition-Magisterium gives us the rock or theological ground on which as Catholics we can build our home.

The Year of Faith

The Church has asked us to keep a Year of Faith, to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism. The Catholic Church is now 20 centuries old. But in her history, she has never before passed through a busy, affluent, secular culture like ours today. We now know what happens when she does: Mass attendance declines; families break up; parishes are clustered; faith for many becomes a hobby, something to dip in-and-out-of.

It’s not the brand that’s faulty here; after all, Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life! It’s the culture we live in, which needs baptising. Let’s not be naive about this. A key reason for attrition is a crude lack of awareness of the corrosive nature of contemporary culture, along with a sad neglect of our Catholic distinctiveness, of the beauty of our Christian faith, and of what the Church can offer. This is why the Year of faith is a grace-filled opportunity. It’s not easy to be a disciple today, to be a Catholic, let alone, to be a Catholic teacher or a Catholic priest. This is because we inhabit a challenging cultural context.

A Spiritual homing-device

Let me give you an image, one I’m sure you’ve heard before. A few years ago, I was on holiday in Scotland and saw an amazing sight: thousands of wild salmon in a river, swimming upstream, racing ahead, jumping in the air to get past the rocks and over the boulders. Salmon, I am told, lay their eggs upstream, and once hatched, the new salmon swim down to the sea on a huge journey to the feeding-grounds off Greenland. They then have two months to get back to the river they were born in, to lay their own eggs and after to die. How on earth they know where their home-river is a mystery, but that’s why you see the amazing sight of fish swimming upstream, jumping in the air, racing ahead against the current.

It made me think of two things. That we are a bit like salmon. Deep down in every human heart is a spiritual homing-device. We are made for God and made for heaven. Our home is in him, and our hearts are restless until we find him. But secondly, to find Him, to find Him in our busy, affluent, secular culture, we must swim upstream against the current. To find God, to develop a friendship with him, to live the life of Christ, to reach heaven our home, we have to be countercultural, to be different, to create space and time, to make the effort, even to suffer.

Keep to what you have been taught and know to be true. As Catholic educators in a secular culture, let us ask God for the grace to persevere and to remain faithful. We ask Him, too, to bless the adults and the children in the different places where we serve.

Like Christ our Master, the Church will not be popular. We are countercultural people. We are swimming against the current. But let’s remember: it is not the product that is defective but the ability of people in today’s culture to receive it. This is why we need enormous creativity if we are to find new ways of spreading the Faith, effectively engaging with the new generations of 21^st century. Let us pray to the Holy Spirit that he will shower upon us his many gifts. Thus rooted in the Heart of Jesus, may we all be well equipped to face the exciting challenges ahead.”

AMEN!!!!!!!!

Love,
Matthew

Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom