Friday, July 29, 2022

TRUE DEAD FAITH


Neither Tradition nor Traditionalism is dead faith.

The word of God tells us what true dead faith is: "For even as the body without the spirit is dead: so also faith without works is dead." (James 2:26).

This is what the Word of God teaches us: Whoever does not comply with God’s commandments, even if he believes, because of mortal sin his faith is dead, and if he dies without sanctifying grace, he will perish eternally.

Tradition is not the adoration of ashes, but the PRESERVATION and passing on of the fire.

On Traditionalists, Saint Pius X says:

“The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.” So traditionalism is not what former Protestant pastor Jaroslav Pelikan said: "the dead faith of the living", and who was recently quoted in the papal trip to Canada.

The following words of Pius XII make it very clear:

“Tradition is something very different from a simple attachment to a bygone past; it is the very opposite of a reaction mistrustful of all healthy progress. Etymologically, the word is synonymous with advancement and marching forward, synonymous but not identical… Tradition also signifies a forward march, but a continuous march as well, a movement both brisk and tranquil… By virtue of tradition, the youth, enlightened and guided by the experience of the elders, moves forward with a surer step, and the elders can confidently pass on the plow to stronger hands, to continue the furrow already begun. As the word itself indicates, Tradition is a gift handed down from one generation to another; it is the torch that one runner passes to the hands of the next at each relay, without the race slowing down or coming to a halt. Tradition and progress complement each other so harmoniously that, just as Tradition without progress would be a contradiction in terms, so also progress without Tradition would be a reckless enterprise, a leap into darkness”.

(Pius XII, Speech to the Roman Nobility and Patriarchate, "L'Osservatore Romano", January 20, 1944).


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