Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - Pope Benedict XVI has chosen the subject of the Church for catechesis at the general weekly audiences. On Wednesday 3 May he dwelt for the second time on the significance and value of Apostolic Tradition of “utmost importance for the life of the Church”.
The Pope quoted Vatican II: “In His gracious goodness, God has seen to it that what He had revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations. Therefore Christ the Lord in whom the full revelation of the supreme God is brought to completion (see Cor. 1:20; 3:13; 4:6), commissioned the Apostles to preach to all men that Gospel which is the source of all saving truth and moral teaching, and to impart to them heavenly gifts” (Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, 7). This task was faithfully carried out by the Apostles and their helpers “inspired by the Holy Spirit they put the news of salvation in writing”. “Their number - the Pope said referring to the Apostles - expresses not only continuity with the holy root, Israel of the twelve tribes, but also the universal destination of their ministry, bearers of salvation to the far corners of the earth. We understand this from the symbolic value given to numbers in the Semitic world: twelve is the result of the multiplication of three, the perfect number and four, a number which recalls the four cardinal points and therefore the whole world”.
The first community of Christians “recognises that it has been convoked by the word of those who were the first to experience the Lord and by Him were sent. The community knows it can rely on the Twelve as guides, and on those whom they gradually associate as successors in the ministry of the Word and service of communion. Consequently the community feels impelled to pass on to others the ‘good news’ of the real presence of the Lord and his Paschal Mystery, working through the Spirit”. There is ample testimony of this missionary commitment especially in the writings of St Paul and other Christian authors.
Vatican II recalls: “Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes" (Cost. Dei Verbum, 8). “The Church hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes- Pope Benedict XVI said -, she hands it on in her worship, her life, her teaching. Tradition is therefore the living Gospel, announced by the Apostles in its integrity, based on the fullness of their unique and unrepeatable experience: and through them the faith is communicated to others, to us in our time, and until the end of time. Therefore Tradition is the history of the Spirit working in the history of the Church by means of the mediation of the Apostles and their successors in faithful continuity with that first experience”.
The Pope continued his teaching, underlining that “this chain of service continues to this day and will continue to the end of the world. In fact the mandate Jesus conferred on the Apostles was handed on by them to their successors. Besides personal contact with Christ, a unique and unrepeatable experience, the Apostles handed on to their successors the solemn mandate received from the Lord… So, in a different way from the Apostles, we too have a real and personal experience of the Risen Lord. Through the apostolic ministry it is Christ himself who reaches those called to the faith. The distance of centuries is overcome and the Risen Lord offers himself living and working for us in the today of the Church and the world. This is our great joy”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 4/4/2006, righe 42, parole 625)
