What is the point of tradition (little t)?

[Sultan_Of_Swing]

Pope Francis has ditched the red shoes and various other traditional bits and pieces of the Papal office.

The Second Vatican Council introduced a new liturgy for the Mass.

We now can have female altar servers.

The list goes on.

So my question is, what is actually the purpose or point of tradition (with a little t)? I mean, things keep getting changed, why bother trying to be ‘traditional’ when it seems to have little value or purpose?

Don’t get me wrong, I personally am a fan of tradition (The Latin Mass is great) but I’m just wondering what the actual point of it is if it can be so easily changed and removed. I mean, should we try to preserve tradition, and if so why?

 

[Jon_S_1]

Pope Francis has ditched the red shoes and various other traditional bits and pieces of the Papal office.

The Second Vatican Council introduced a new liturgy for the Mass.

We now can have female altar servers.

The list goes on.

So my question is, what is actually the purpose or point of tradition (with a little t)? I mean, things keep getting changed, why bother trying to be ‘traditional’ when it seems to have little value or purpose?

Don’t get me wrong, I personally am a fan of tradition (The Latin Mass is great) but I’m just wondering what the actual point of it is if it can be so easily changed and removed. I mean, should we try to preserve tradition, and if so why?

Times change? People changes, society changes.

It is the little t traditions that marry us with society.

It’s a little odd to me that people hold these traditions so dear as if they’ve always been there but they haven’t.

There was no Latin mass before around the 4th or 5th century. The mass was first in celebrated in Greek. Where is the call to return to the Greek mass?

There are countless others that are dear to us because we live now but if we had lived 500 years ago things would be very different.

A good example of this I learned with the smoke above The Sistine chapel when a pope is selected.

It sounds so old and traditional and if they did away with it I bet a lot of people would be upset and decry the abandonment of tradition, but this tradition is only like 150 years old!

So perspective right?

 

[Razanir]

Little-t tradition is just local customs.
CCC 83:

…Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time. These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great Tradition is expressed. In the light of Tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium.

Does it really matter that Pope Francis is so big on humility that he’s eschewed the fancy shoes?

Does the exact order of Mass really matter, or is the important part that we’re praising God? (Not speaking against the liturgy. Just pointing out that V2 wasn’t the first time the liturgy changed)

Altar servers is a bit touchier of one, though. Some people still vehemently oppose female altar servers, because the role is supposed to expose young men to the priesthood. Others are fine with it.

 

[FathersKnowBest]

So my question is, what is actually the purpose or point of tradition (with a little t)? I mean, things keep getting changed, why bother trying to be ‘traditional’ when it seems to have little value or purpose?

Don’t get me wrong, I personally am a fan of tradition (The Latin Mass is great) but I’m just wondering what the actual point of it is if it can be so easily changed and removed. I mean, should we try to preserve tradition, and if so why?

traditions have developed as ways to focus our faith, and ways to devote ourselves to God. That is not to say that those devotions are the only, or even the best, way to do those things. As the Church (the leadership and/or the laity) determine that there are better ways to express our devotion to God these things are allowed to change.

 

[Avila123]

Times change? People changes, society changes.

It is the little t traditions that marry us with society.

It’s a little odd to me that people hold these traditions so dear as if they’ve always been there but they haven’t.

There was no Latin mass before around the 4th or 5th century. The mass was first in celebrated in Greek. Where is the call to return to the Greek mass?

There are countless others that are dear to us because we live now but if we had lived 500 years ago things would be very different.

A good example of this I learned with the smoke above The Sistine chapel when a pope is selected.

It sounds so old and traditional and if they did away with it I bet a lot of people would be upset and decry the abandonment of tradition, but this tradition is only like 150 years old!

So perspective right?

Agree. When Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion was brought back, it was originally thought to be new and I understand some people are still uncomfortable with it today. Lay people originally brought the Eucharist to the sick and housebound up until some time in the Middle Ages, when it was decided that there were sufficient Priests and Monks around to undertake that role. Looks like we went full circle.

The question is what should we be concentrating on? What is more important red shoes, when to use incense etc or God? Personally, God gets my vote every time.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Agree. When Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion was brought back, it was originally thought to be new and I understand some people are still uncomfortable with it today. Lay people originally brought the Eucharist to the sick and housebound up until some time in the Middle Ages, when it was decided that there were sufficient Priests and Monks around to undertake that role. Looks like we went full circle.

The question is what should we be concentrating on? What is more important red shoes, when to use incense etc or God? Personally, God gets my vote every time.

GOD!!!

Absolutely.

This is what Pope Francis is teaching, we can have all the pious traditions in the world but if we are not walking the Christian walk of service to God and Man, then it’s all for not.

 

[ProVobis]

Where is the call to return to the Greek mass?

Last I heard, whatever was left of the Greek (Kyrie eleison, Sabaoth) was scrapped in the 60’s. You can’t blame the Latinists for that.

 

[Razanir]

Agree. When Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion was brought back, it was originally thought to be new and I understand some people are still uncomfortable with it today. Lay people originally brought the Eucharist to the sick and housebound up until some time in the Middle Ages, when it was decided that there were sufficient Priests and Monks around to undertake that role. Looks like we went full circle.

The question is what should we be concentrating on? What is more important red shoes, when to use incense etc or God? Personally, God gets my vote every time.

IIRC, Communion in the hand predates Communion on the tongue

 

[YoungTradCath]

The question is what should we be concentrating on? What is more important red shoes, when to use incense etc or God? Personally, God gets my vote every time.

True, however, there may be an assumption in your post that somehow maintaining traditions and God are opposed, which they aren’t. It’s not like it’s super difficult to use incense or not ad lib at Mass or have some decorum when standing during a liturgy. Not “tradition” per se, more a mixture of tradition and common sense.

However, I do think modern people are extremely myopic and it often doesn’t even strike us that by changing practices we dump centuries of practice as if it does not matter one bit. That is extremely dangerous. It cannot be denied that there is a widespread sociological disconnect between modern Western people and “human tradition” in general, so to speak, and that is a bad thing. It shows that there is something wrong with our culture, something very, very wrong. It is not that nothing can change. It is that too often people hate tradition (often “intellectuals”) or, actually more commonly, they have no conscious conception or even perception of tradition. This over-rationalization of sorts, which is actually completely irrational, is very unhealthy because it is foreign to the human psyche.

The worst thing is not dumping tradition, nor even not caring. The worst thing is that it doesn’t strike a significant portion of our population as being wrong or misguided in any way.

 

[TheresaLS]

The “little t’s” require time and work. They are old…not necessary for increase of faith. Like, the old churches that are being left to decay, they will be needed one day but they will be long gone. Being named for the “little T” (St Therese) I’ll stick with the practices and go where they are offered.

 

[bsroufek]

1 Cor 11:2, “Hold fast to the traditions I handed on to you…”

2 Thessalonians 2:15, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”

Note that this command of St. Paul is to two different Churches. It seems then that holding to traditions in the Church is a good thing.

As far as female altar servers, this isn’t an ordained ministry, so there really isn’t anything barring them from participating in it, or in distributing Communion or any other
non-Sacramental ministry in the Church.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

Pope Francis has ditched the red shoes and various other traditional bits and pieces of the Papal office.

Which in and of itself is weird- but those are externals

The Second Vatican Council introduced a new liturgy for the Mass.

Which was all well and good til people embraced the “spirit” rather than the actual document

We now can have female altar servers.

A questionable practice, especially in light of the vocation crisis.

The list goes on.

Sadly, it does

So my question is, what is actually the purpose or point of tradition (with a little t)? I mean, things keep getting changed, why bother trying to be ‘traditional’ when it seems to have little value or purpose?

“tradition” is what ties us to the Church of the past, the Church and Mass of the saints, and sets up apart from modern society. Little “t” traditions are what make us exist and function outside the mundane and vulgar. “tradition” is what keeps us on the straight and narrow, and not mired in the well paved path to Hell.

Don’t get me wrong, I personally am a fan of tradition (The Latin Mass is great) but I’m just wondering what the actual point of it is if it can be so easily changed and removed. I mean, should we try to preserve tradition, and if so why?

Things can’t be easily changed and removed, modern society and interpretation just thinks they can. When you actually read V2- the nonsense that is occurring, and has been since the “spirit” took over- was never supposed to happen

 

[Jon_S_1]

1 Cor 11:2, “Hold fast to the traditions I handed on to you…”

2 Thessalonians 2:15, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”

Note that this command of St. Paul is to two different Churches. It seems then that holding to traditions in the Church is a good thing.

As far as female altar servers, this isn’t an ordained ministry, so there really isn’t anything barring them from participating in it, or in distributing Communion or any other
non-Sacramental ministry in the Church.

I don’t disagree with what you wrote but would just say these verses are typically understood to be referring to big T Traditions

 

[YoungTradCath]

I don’t disagree with what you wrote but would just say these verses are typically understood to be referring to big T Traditions

Yes, but “little t traditions” tie us in a corporeal way to “big T Traditions.” If we just change things like picking ice cream flavors, then the little t traditions are not really traditions at all, and the entire concept of little t traditions will have been obliterated, and so will our one of our major ways–although not the only way–to experience big T Traditions.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Yes, but “little t traditions” tie us in a corporeal way to “big T Traditions.” If we just change things like picking ice cream flavors, then the little t traditions are not really traditions at all, and the entire concept of little t traditions will have been obliterated, and so will our one of our major ways–although not the only way–to experience big T Traditions.

Yes and no

Believe me I love the traditions in the church and how slow changing things are. Even the vestments are 1500 plus year tradition.

tradition has all but been lost in most of Protestantism or was never even there such as my evangelical background.

It was the traditions in the mass that made me commune in a special way with God.

So I think traditions should be slow to change if they change at all. And it should only change if there is a good need for doing so that will bring people closer to Christ.

For example if it was found incense caused cancer so people stopped going to mass it would be worthwhile to find a substitute changing the tradition to bring people back.

If the Pope felt his clothes and home were to worldly or pompous he should change it to show the humility if the vicar of Christ.

Things like that.

What I hope we avoid is the holding on of traditions for the sake if comfort and familiarity at the expense of Christian charity.

 

[YoungTradCath]

What I hope we avoid is the holding on of traditions for the sake if comfort and familiarity at the expense of Christian charity.

Well, yes, but this leads into my point. I am convinced that the vast majority of Catholic traditions, liturgical and otherwise, are in absolutely no way contradictory to Christian charity or Christian faith or Christian anything. It really just baffles me that someone would say this because I do not see what cause there is to say it. I don’t see the connection.

What tradition is genuinely contradictory to Christian charity? Do candles at Mass make some people uncharitable? I don’t understand.

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Again, things can be changed for good reasons and always with common sense, but I don’t see how charity has much to do with that.

 

[TheresaLS]

Well, yes, but this leads into my point. I am convinced that the vast majority of Catholic traditions, liturgical and otherwise, are in absolutely no way contradictory to Christian charity or Christian faith or Christian anything. It really just baffles me that someone would say this because I do not see what cause there is to say it. I don’t see the connection.

What tradition is genuinely contradictory to Christian charity? Do candles at Mass make some people uncharitable? I don’t understand.

---

Again, things can be changed for good reasons and always with common sense, but I don’t see how charity has much to do with that.

These little t’s are what sets us apart or are they too offensive to those that are not Catholic. Is charity now to be like everyone else…I do not think so, but then I have been described as being “too Catholic”. Hold on to the traditions Young Catholic but we might have to go back to the catacombs to worship so as not to offend.

 

[Jon_S_1]

Well, yes, but this leads into my point. I am convinced that the vast majority of Catholic traditions, liturgical and otherwise, are in absolutely no way contradictory to Christian charity or Christian faith or Christian anything. It really just baffles me that someone would say this because I do not see what cause there is to say it. I don’t see the connection.

What tradition is genuinely contradictory to Christian charity? Do candles at Mass make some people uncharitable? I don’t understand.

---

Again, things can be changed for good reasons and always with common sense, but I don’t see how charity has much to do with that.

I thought I gave a couple good examples

And I agree with you that 99% are great…today

 

[YoungTradCath]

These little t’s are what sets us apart or are they too offensive to those that are not Catholic. Is charity now to be like everyone else…I do not think so, but then I have been described as being “too Catholic”. Hold on to the traditions Young Catholic but we might have to go back to the catacombs to worship so as not to offend.

I would be psychologically and emotionally wounded if the traditions were to be seemingly stripped from the Church, ie, if I were to have lived through the post-Vatican II silliness. I would rather have to go to the catacombs to worship, because at least it would be psychologically acceptable and rational.

 

[TheresaLS]

I would be psychologically and emotionally wounded if the traditions were to be seemingly stripped from the Church, ie, if I were to have lived through the post-Vatican II silliness. I would rather have to go to the catacombs to worship, because at least it would be psychologically acceptable and rational.

The progressives and liberals think they are winning…we just need to pray harder and live our lives as examples as Benedict XVI has…Bless you, you are not alone.