Ministry in a Multi-Cultural and Unchurched Society

Sess i on 7: Chur ch Mat ter s and Go i ng Back to the Future

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3. New believers were strenuously trained and tested through the process of the Catechumanate .

“It is good that learners desire baptism, but do not hastily receive it. For he who desires it, honors it. He who hastily receives it, disdains it. . . . Hasty reception is the portion of irreverence. It inflates the seeker; it despises the Giver. And thus it sometimes deceives, for it promises itself the gift before it is due” (Tertullian, c. 203 [cf. David W. Bercot, ed. A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs . Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998, p. 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 ever lasting 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.