In my previous post I addressed one connotation contained in the title of these two posts, "Why Tradition?" I gave there an explanation by way of the Life we experience in Holy Tradition. Here I will address the second connotation contained in the question titling this post, "Why Tradition?" That is to say, why make so much out of it? Here I give my defense of what it is we hold on to.
My defense begins and ends with the exact same answer given to the question in the first post: We hold on to Tradition because in it we have the Life Christ gives to his people. "Will you also leave?" our Lord asks us. And with Peter, we reply, "Where else can we go? You have the words of Life."
But this answer does not satisfy my brothers and sisters who want only to hold on to certain parts of the Tradition and not the whole of it, or, more to the point, those who would reject the Tradition altogether. I will try to explain to these, then, why it is we hold on to the Tradition. From the outset, however, I recognize, as I noted in my previous post, that we do not speak the same language here. It's not just the difference between the dialects of justice and righ