Living Bodies Grow. Only dead Ones are Stuffed in Boxes
The rituals and traditions of Catholicism offer a sense of continuity and connection to the past. But the Church is ALIVE. It doesn’t not exist in the past, it exists through time. It exists, always, “now”. Even her past is her “now.” Sacred tradition is indispensable for the Church’s good, and for ours. Those are things that can’t and won’t ever change. But, outside of Sacred Tradition, let’s not limit ourselves or the Church by the box of “the past.” Dead bodies are put in boxes. Living bodies are animated and grow.
The Church grows but it does not change, just as our bodies grow without actually changing. The Church is always being perfected within itself (disciplines, or even some customs, development of theology, and so on) just as we perfect ourselves within (virtue, wisdom and understanding)—that is the “change” that living beings undergo. Growth is not change. Growth of your body, or of the Mystical Body is not a change. Development within should be movement toward perfection. That interior development is a change that is laudable, not regrettable.
This should not be interpreted as an attack against Tradition or a distaste for traditions and customs. I love traditions and customs, and I dislike change. The Church also loves her Tradition (sacred tradition) but as a living body she has been undergoing growth and development for 2000 years. So this post is not an attack of tradition, but a reminder that the Church is a living body, not an embodiment of a memory of the past. Let her be alive. That’s the nature of the Church. Don’t rob her of her nature and dignity.
Let the Church be alive, and be alive with her. May God make us all saints, by His grace, and through the work of the mechanisms of His Mystical Body.
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