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About The Georgia bulletin (Atlanta) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 8, 1987)
33 Page 2 • Faith Today Faith Today • Page 3 Tapping our roots Past mode present By Father Don Talafous, OSB NC News Service ■e launch a boat with a bottle of cham pagne. We shake hands on being in troduced. We give gifts on Christmas. We make the Sign of the Cross with holy water. The best man carries the wedding couple’s rings. Hindus bathe in the Ganges. All these probably qualify' as traditions. Some pertain to certain classes or groups of people; some people may have no part in them or may even find them objectionable. Traditions often have a hard time of it in our fast-moving society. One person’s tradition may be another person’s antiquated custom. A theologian writing on this said: “Recently Studs Terkel chided a group of students for hav ing no sense of tradition and for supposing that the history of music began with Bob Dylan. One of them asked, ‘Bob who? ” Inevitably people accept some traditions or make their own. Most of us live with some traditions, some customs handed on to us or which we intend to hand on to others. This is because they pro vide gestures and actions for some of our cherished beliefs and convictions. Traditions afford us ways of do ing things, of handling certain common situations; they were us ed by others before us (often for many, many centuries) and seem to have enough worth for many to keep on doing them. In a religion like Christianity, what was done and witnessed by the earliest disciples is very impor tant. So there is a strong tendency to preserve or to develop customs which put into concrete form the attitudes and beliefs which seem rooted in these early disciples. •The restoration of white as the color of vestments for funerals highlights the earliest Christian understanding that hope should prevail over gloom at the death of a believer. •Standing up while the Gospel is read expresses an attitude of readitiess, reverence and alertness in the presence of God’s word. A writer named G.K. Chesterton said that tradition is a way of giv ing a vote to the dead, of taking into consideration their experience and knowledge, of not being dominated simply by the present. Tradition, he said, asks us not “to neglect a good man’s opinion even if he is our father.” In Christian life, too, tradition means giving some weight to those who have gone before because they have learned something of value for us and because we believe they were especially close to the original fire, the faith ig nited by Jesus in his followers. In life, some traditions can be found oppressive — that women must wash the dishes, for example. Some may find that to kiss some one on both cheeks upon meeting is repulsive; others may consider it a great improvement over the handshake. Like everything else in human life, traditions are limited by time and space. For instance, the separation of men and women within a church building is a tradi tion of certain ethnic groups that has faded from the scene — deservedly, most would say. We change traditions. We go back to earlier traditions — for ex ample, Communion in the hand and exchanging the sign of peace. Or we drop them and form new ones more appropriate to our lives. Otherwise we would be in danger of what is often called traditional ism, an unthinking kind of rever ence for whatever has been. If we kept and observed every tradition that our family, church or country had handed down to us, we might have a hard time even getting to work in the morning. In Christianity and in each Christian there is bound to be some tension between traditions and the present moment. Keeping a good balance is difficult and re quires the concern and contribu tion of every active believer, of all the people of God. (Father Talafous is a professor of theology at St. John’s Universi ty, Collegeville, Minn.) • By Katharine Bird NC News Service t Holy Trinity Parish in Washington, D.C., peo ple always look forward to Toy Sunday, celebra ted as part of the parish’s preparation for Christmas. On Toy Sunday, during the family Mass, children bring usable old ♦toys and new toys to the altar as part of the presentation of gifts. Later these toys are distributed to „needy children. This parish tradition “is fun to do but also plants the seed of generosity,” said Jesuit Father ♦James Maier, pastor of Holy Trini ty. “It helps children learn to share and to realize there are kids .with no toys.” In an interview at his Holy Trinity office in a building designated a historical landmark, 'Father Maier discussed how im portant tradition is in parish life. Homegrown traditions are a way for parishes to create their identi ty. At the same time, the church’s ancient liturgical tradition con nects each individual parish with •Catholic parishes throughout the world — those of today and those of centuries long gone by. % For Father David Drewelow, church tradition has “a way of saying something happened in another time that is beyond time, 4or always.” He is pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Salem, Mo., and of two mission parishes 30 miles away, Christ the King in ^Bunker and St. Jude in Montauk. Tradition helps to plug us into The tradition continues. By Father John Castelot NC News Service A half century had pass ed since the resurrec tion of Jesus when Luke set about writing his Gospel in the 80s. He was a latecomer on the scene, a gentile convert with no direct knowledge of Jesus. Where did Luke get his informa tion? From tradition, from the Christian communities. Among his sources Luke men tions eyewitnesses and ministers of the word — preachers (Luke 1:2). Some material Luke used had been put into writing. He used the Gospel of Mark. Scholars believe Luke also had a collection of the sayings of Jesus at his disposal. And apparently he had special in formation picked up through con tacts with the churches in various places. Paul also was a latecomer. For insight into the workings of tradi tion, listen to what he tells the Corinthians as he begins a discus sion of the resurrection: “I hand ed on to you first of all what I myself received” (1 Corinthians 15:3). “To hand on” and “to receive” was technical language for the process of tradition. The word tradition refers to a dynamic pro cess through which God’s word is communicated and through which we respond to it. For years, decades in fact, tradi tion was an oral process in the an cient church. Paul’s first letter, 1 Thessalonians, was not written until 51 A.D. and Mark, the first written Gospel, appeared only about 70 A.D. Jesus wrote nothing; he preach ed. His followers, too, looked upon preaching as their primary responsibility. As preachers, they shared their understanding of what God had done for humanity in Christ Jesus* And they related this to their hearers’ current needs. This process is reflected in the books of the Bible, which crystallize traditional interpreta tions in written form. • All of this is summed up in the Second Vatican Council’s “Con stitution on Divine Revelation”: “After the ascension of the Lord, the apostles handed on to their hearers what (Jesus) had said and done, but with that fuller * understanding which they, in structed by the glorious events of Christ (the resurrection) and enlightened by the Spirit of truth* now enjoyed.” Then, “the sacred authors...selected certain of the » many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form, others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches” (No. 19). So, you see, the Bible is a writ ten record of an already active tradition, an ongoing process which continues until the end of time. The mystery of Christ never will be fully comprehended or adequately expressed in time- conditioned human formulas. As Vatican II puts it: “The tradi tion which comes from the apostles makes progress in the church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on.... As the cen turies go by, the church is always advancing toward the plenitude of divine truth, until eventually the words of God are fulfilled in her” (No. 8). < (Father Castelot is a professor of Scripture at St. John's Seminary, Plymouth, Mich.) the timeless word of God. It links us to moments in history when God interacted with his people, Father Drewelow said. Thus “it encourages us to see God will be with us too.” The riches of tradition are readily visible in the celebration of the church’s sacraments. For Father Drewelow, the use of rituals or elements of rituals from the past allows Christians to make a connection with those who preceded them, he explained. “The riches of tradition are readily visible in the celebration of the church’s sacraments.... The use of rituals or elements of rituals from the past allows Christians to make a connection with those who preceded them.” The present rite of baptism is a case in point. This ritual “reflects what the church was doing from the earliest times,” Father Drewelow noted. The ritual uses “sign, sound and symbol” to communicate to Chris tians what is happening in bap tism, he added. It is an action of faith today that “invokes the en tire tradition of the church from the beginning — the waters of Noah’s flood, God bringing life through death, through water.” In miniature form “all of salva tion history” is repeated in the baptismal ritual, said Father Drewelow’. It “can’t help but touch us” both “intellectually and emotionally.” Parishioners meet tradition head-on in another practice that is frequently part of parish life today — the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults used with those plan ning to become members of the Catholic community. It is a prac tice reaching back to the roots of Christianity. People who go through the RCIA process “would never dream Christianity is anything but com munal,” said Jesuit Father Lawrence Madden, director of the Georgetown Center for Liturgy, Spirituality and the Arts in Washington. Mirroring the ap proach of the first-century church, the RCIA process addresses not only those entering the church, but the entire community. Focusing on the behavior ex pected of Christians, it encourages “an integrated life view,” a life where Sunday worship and daily practice reinforce each other, Father Madden said. It asks people to reflect “on their past and pre sent to see how God is active there.” (Ms. Bird is associate editor of Faith Today.) FOOD FOR THOUGHT Think about some particular traditions that you observe at home — on holidays, for example, or at meals. Is there a sense in which these practices or customs express the church’s tradition about Jesus Christ? How is the core tradition of the church expressed in particular tradi tions — gift-giving at Christmas, prayer at meals, reading Scripture alone or with others, for example? Why would it be true to say that tradition is a dynamic force for the present and future? In the church’s liturgical tradition, Christians are reminded of their rich heritage. At a wedding, for example, the intimate bond between Christ and his people is reflected by the couple in the commitment they make to each other. How is the church’s tradition reflected at other points in the celebration of the sacraments? Second Helpings. What makes a wedding traditional? Does it mean that all Catholic weddings are exactly alike in every detail? Who chooses what scriptural readings are used and who decides what kind of music is appropriate? These questions and many more are addressed in a practical handbook called Celebrating Marriage: Preparing the Wedding Liturgy, edited by Paul Covino. The book, aimed at helping couples take an active part in planning their wedding liturgies with their pre-marriage instructors, stresses the liturgical aspects of weddings. Christian weddings are both tradi tional and contemporary, this workbook says: “Your wedding liturgy will be traditional because it is based on the Rite of Marriage and therefore is faithful to the church’s understanding of marriage. It will be contemporary because, as it is celebrated, the wedding liturgy will reveal your love for one another and make present here and now God’s love for you in its ac tions and symbols.” (The Pastoral Press, 225 Sheridan St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20011. 1987. 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Wacker Drive • Chicago, 312 • 236-7240 linois 60601 Enclosed is $_ for. copy(s) of The Catholic Church Who Are We? at $1.50 each. Name Address City ! i. ■ i . State_ Zip_
