WHAT IS THE BIBLICAL SENSE OF SACRED TRADITION? WHAT IS ITS - TopicsExpress

WHAT IS THE BIBLICAL SENSE OF SACRED TRADITION? WHAT IS ITS SIGNIFICANCE IN OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH? I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the TRADITIONS even as I have delivered them to you. --- 1 Corinthians 11:2 Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the TRADITIONS that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours. --- 2 Thessalonians 2:15 Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard this RICH TRUST with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. --- 2 Timothy 1:13-14 TRADITION literally means “handing on”; it also refers to what is handed on. In the words of Vatican II describing Tradition: “Now what was handed on by the apostles includes everything which contributes to the holiness of life, and the increase in faith of the People of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes” (Constitution on Divine Revelation, #8). Tradition is expressed in (and grows from) the Church’s creeds, the records of the Church’s liturgy, the writings of the great teachers, the decrees of popes and councils, the prayer and faith of the people. --- Leonard Foley, OFM, Believing in Jesus, A Popular Overview of the Catholic Faith The heart of the Catholic matter is a way of life, a way of life rooted in our – the church’s – centuries-old, ongoing, loving intimacy with the risen Christ, including all the forms it has taken and all it has given rise to. Another name for this experience is SACRED TRADITION. It was Sacred Tradition that gave birth to the Christian Scriptures or New Testament. It was the first-century Christian communities’ shared memories of the historical Jesus and their experience of the risen Christ in their midst, in various social, political, and cultural circumstances, that gave birth to the New Testament, and it is in the New Testament that we find the standards according to which we measure ourselves and our lives. --- Mitch Finley, The Seeker’s Guide to Being Catholic