The Living Waters of Tradition

Given at the Sacred Liturgy Conference in Spokane, Washington, in 2019, this lecture explains why tradition is so central to the Catholic Faith (and always has been); looks at different kinds of tradition, how they interrelate, and why all of them are important; furnishes examples of people who were drawn closer to Christ through particular traditions, especially the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass); considers the devastating consequences of the banishment of many traditions after Vatican II; and refutes the common claim that all that matters at Mass is that "Jesus is present." Overall, the talk is a rousing defense of the "externals" and "trappings" of the Faith that progressives and liberals are so quick to dismiss or replace.

From the conclusion:

"What we need most in the Catholic Church today is not more accommodation to the tastes and tactics of the secular world, but a rekindling of the fire, light, and warmth that made the Old Evangelization successful and glorious. The revival of tradition is an extraordinary grace of our times, given in response to the alarming amnesia of identity, the crisis of fidelity and even of identity through which the Catholic Church is passing in our times. To use a medical metaphor, it is as if the recrudescence of modernist cancer is being met with the cellular regeneration of tradition."

N.B. A revised and expanded version of this lecture features as chapter 1 in my book, "The Once and Future Roman Rite: Returning to the Traditional Latin Liturgy after Seventy Years of Exile," published on October 4, 2022.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Once-Fu....ture-Roman-Rite-Trad

Publisher (TAN) link: https://tanbooks.com/products/....books/the-once-and-f