Tradition and the Spirit

One of the basic tenets of Catholicism is that we hold as true both the Scriptures and Sacred Tradition as preserved by the Church.  The confusion surrounding the word tradition and the emotional charges that accompany it are many: tradition denotes some sort of preservation, but what is to be preserved?  And how far afield from what is supposed to be preserved have we come if the specific actions traditionally associated with our tradition have been changed so drastically over the course of time that it is barely recognizable as preserving the same thing the original actions were?  These worries and frustrations really boil down to this: if we partake in a tradition, how are we guaranteed that we are partaking in the same actions and in the same preservation of truth that our forefathers did?  Such worries are particularly relevant to our own day and age, where we can see the near equal rise of the religiously unaffiliated and those who have returned to the faith with a tenacity that Paul would most certainly approve of.  The worries of the preservation of tradition and the identity of the Church can be found only in an absolute way in the accompaniment of the Church by the Holy Spirit at all times.

Simply put, to trust in a tradition is to trust that what is being handed down, what is preserved has been essentially unchanged at all from the very moment of its creation: it is a trust that the individuals who were first in line saw with such clarity the truth and goodness worthy of preservation that no one else could ever replicate it.  The authority of tradition is really an appeal to the authority of the very first witnesses of the originating act.  This relates easily to our discussion on the tradition within the Church, as over 2000 years have passed since her inception in the Upper Room at Pentecost, and in the natural course of history it would be natural to wonder how (or even if) the Church could have preserved the gift of the Holy Spirit through so many times and through increasing challenges in our own day.  Nevertheless, “in the midst of the problems, disappointments and hopes, desertions and returns of these times of ours, the Church remains faithful to the mystery of her birth. While it is an historical fact that the Church came forth from the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost, in a certain sense one can say that she has never left it. Spiritually the event of Pentecost does not belong only to the past: the Church is always in the Upper Room that she bears in her heart (Dominum et Vivificantem, paragraph 66)”.  This is the guarantee, the source of Hope that the Holy Spirit bestows upon the Church today and throughout all ages: the Church has not lost the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room because through the Holy Spirit the Church never left that room.  The Holy Spirit acts within the Church as the guaranteeing authority of the preservation of her tradition because the Holy Spirit Himself is that Person who witnessed the first originating act.  We can be assured that  “the Church perseveres in preserves, like the Apostles together with Mary, the Mother of Christ, and with those who in Jerusalem were the first seed of the Christian community and who awaited in prayer the coming of the Holy Spirit” because the originating authority and witness accompanies those to whom these truths were entrusted in our very own day.

The challenges to the Church are increasing daily, and from the outside some of the changes may appear to be completely devoid of any internal continuity in preserving that which the tradition is to preserve.  This is not to be a source of worry for us, though: the Holy Spirit continues to accompany the Church, to remind her of her own identity and draw the faithful ever more deeper into a relationship with Him.