Spirituality and Tradition
by Tim Quinlan • June 19, 2015
The origin of a word is always interesting to trace because it allows us an interesting optic on the earliest understanding of it. The word “tradition” derives from the past participle (“traditus”) of the Latin verb “tradere” which translates as “to hand on” or “to hand over” to the next generation. As with one’s possessions, one also wishes to pass on one’s beliefs and values to the next generation. Such is also the case with any society – it most assuredly wishes to pass on its beliefs and values to the next generation.
Traditions emerge culturally around significant moments in life, especially around moments of transition or what are called generally rites of passage. Such rites naturally have grown up around birth, coming of age, graduation from school and then from college, marriage, sickness or suffering and, of course, dying and death. All of these significant and important moments are too “heavy” (or important, to express the sentiment less metaphorically) for the individual to carry them alone. It requires a community to carry these big moments. Hence various sacramental rites grew up in all the great religions of the world. The lessons of spirituality, then, are mediated mostly through the community, though, of course, we can also have a personal encounter with God, or a personal religious or mystical experience on our own. As Saint Augustine, whom I have mentioned many times in these posts, pointed out to his brethren in religious life and to the faithful as Bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the fifth century A.D. we do not journey alone to God; we do so, in fact, in the community of one another or in the company of the faithful.
In this sense, none of us can do anything of significance in any career or endeavour without building on what has gone before us. We are all born into communities with particular traditions within which we are socialized in a particular way. In short, we are born into traditions whether we like it or not. There was an old Irish proverb used quite often when I was a boy which went: “Ná déan nós agus ná bris nós” which translates “Make no tradition and break no tradition.” The sense of the proverb is that tradition was of such vital importance that it could neither be added to nor dismissed. However, while today we would quite obviously disagree with the first part as we realize that all tradition grows, that it is not set in stone, that it is vibrant and ever expanding, we understand the intended truth of the proverb that to dismiss tradition out of hand is short-sighted and contrary to what is instinctively and intuitively right.
And so, spirituality is communicated within the context of community experiences and within the traditional experiences of that community. Therefore, community experiences simply cannot be written off cavalierly. As I’m writing this, we in Ireland are saddened by the shock of the tragic deaths of six young students, all only 21, and the life-changing injuries sustained by many other youngsters who had travelled to Berkley California on J1 visas. The sudden tragic death of those so young is a shock to the system of all thinking and feeling human beings, and many inestimable times more so to their distraught loved ones. And yet, as I sit here somewhat overcome at such tragedy, the chaplaincy and counselling services of the respective communities and colleges at home and in the US have sprung into action. People naturally turn to religious/spiritual services in times of such crises because in such extreme cases we might all call out: “To whom shall we go (for help)?” thereby echoing the cry of the early Apostles when they had learnt that Jesus was to leave them. The relevant text is John 6:68 and the words are Peter’s: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
My argument in this short article is to stress the importance of tradition within all cultures and religions. It is also important to be mindful that religions are cultural phenomena. It is also my argument here that the discriminating and educated mind will always distinguish between organized religion on the one hand as a structural, hierarchical, authoritative and administrative phenomenon and as a spiritual enterprise on the other. It can also be very justly observed that a lot of religions are often more recognised by their former incarnations rather than the latter. This fault lies both with the religions themselves, or more correctly, with certain power-hungry groups within them and with how they are all too easily caricatured in the written and broadcast media.
Finally, let us sum up what we have been saying above. Firstly, we are all born within traditions and there is no denying that. Traditions have helped us as cultures to deal with huge transitions in our lives from birth to growth to marriage, to illness and death. We must realise also that tradition can never be set in stone. If it is, it will become very authoritarian, dogmatic, moralistic, dictatorial and simply uncompromising. A tradition that is alive will be growing and changing. Vatican 2 spoke about a hierarchy of truths. Surely, mainline churches have enough spiritual strength and nous to work out the bare essentials and allow all the less essentials be interpreted according to the consciences of the believers. Let’s have a broad Church that is capable of welcoming all shades of humanity and opinion within its embrace. There is an old saying, attributed variously to different authors, that goes: “Minds are like parachutes: they function better when they are open.” Spirituality can be defined essentially by its fruits in either personal gifts or in graced actions, and surely one of the distinguishing features of any spirituality is its openness to the truth.
In all traditions, there are strong spiritual roots but unfortunately their shoots have all too often been smothered by the weight of negative and sterile law-abiding for duty’s sake alone without any thought or feeling or compassion for humankind in the round. May our respective views of God (or no-God) be liberating, open, accepting and healing of all with whom we live and work and share our being.
Timothy E Quinlan PhD