Tradition

It’s the Christmas season again and we see within our families, neighborhoods, towns and villages the unfolding of events, displays and gatherings. These have become the traditions of Christmas here in America. Throughout the world traditions are being upheld and re-enacted to reaffirm our faith and belief in the saving power of Jesus. In our family, since I can remember, we have celebrated Christmas with a special service on Christmas eve that focuses the family on the purpose of Christmas – God coming into the world in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ.


As we prepared this year my son Paul contacted my Mom and asked for two special recipes…Mom’s fruit cake and Jesus’ birthday cake! Yes…we celebrate Jesus’ birth with a birthday cake. And so the tradition continues the process of being handed down from one generation to another. Paul worked diligently on making the fruit cake and as you can see has done a wonderful job

And for Jesus’ birthday cake he did yet another excellent job at preparing the very delicious cake


Christmas is all about traditions and keeping in touch with family and friends. Making those connections binds us together throughout the year.


The Catholic Church teaches us about Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition, like the Sacred Scriptures, teaches us about Christ and passes along to the Christian community the Christ-like values we should emulate. As described in the catechism, Sacred tradition began with Christ’s direction to the Apostles to go and preach to all nations. “ In preaching the Gospel they were to communicate the gifts of God to all men.” In the early church it is clear there was no written words of Christ. The Christian communities began spreading the Gospel with the oral teaching from the Apostles. The Apostles teaching became for them words to live by, describing what should be done in this world to attain everlasting life. Do we believe these teachings were LESS important than what is written in the Bible? Of course not as they formed the foundation for the entire Christian community. They dictated the behaviors that were acceptable, those that were not and changed the face of the earth forever. So the Apostles handed it down, from one Bishop to the next until we come to the current Pope, Benedict XVI. This tradition continues to this day and is the reason we Catholics listen carefully to the words of the Pope. Listen and incorporate into our very lives the lessons they convey, the guidelines they address, the live-giving, soul saving direction they provide.