Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

Ses s i on 4: Chur ch Mat ter s and Go i ng Back to the Future 87

4. The Church came to endorse a Christ-centered spirituality together through the ongoing development of the Christian year.

D. Summary: The Great Tradition centers its faith and life in liturgy, sacrament, discipleship, and life together on the person of Jesus Christ .

IV. We Need to Restore Our Historical Legacy: The Great Tradition Affirmed the Church as Catholic.

The catholic church is the plantation of God; it is His beloved vineyard. It contains those who have believed in His unerring divine religion. These are the ones who are the heirs by faith of His everlasting kingdom and who are partakers of His divine influence and of the communication of the Holy Spirit. These are the ones armed through Jesus and have received his fear into their hearts. They enjoy the benefit of the sprinkling of the precious and innocent blood of Christ. They have free liberty to call Almighty God, “Father.” They are fellow-heirs and joint-partakers of his beloved Son.

~ Apostolic Constitutions, complied 390 (cf. David W. Bercot, ed. A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998, p. 152).

A. The Great Tradition was deeply concerned about tracing and identifying its roots and continuity with the people of God of the past.

1. They essentially saw Christianity as a historical religion of community grounded in the ongoing expression of the promise, seen generation by generation.

2. They rejected any notion of Christianity devoid of its historical validity: Christianity is not merely the courage of individual conscience but also the accuracy of historical faith!