Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles

 Lectionary: 561

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,
of the Gospel I preached to you,
which you indeed received and in which you also stand.
Through it you are also being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to you...

Scott Hahn, in his book Rome Sweet Home, speaks of his astonishment upon reading the above passage from Saint Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians. The young Presbyterian minister had practiced an American form of Christianity which habitually denounced "tradition." That was a popish thing which belonged to "those Catholics," who are doomed anyway. 

But if the great apostle received and handed on a teaching, he was honoring a tradition! That's what tradition does. The sand beneath the preacher's house was being carried out to sea. 

Somewhere during my seminary years (1962-75), an older friar reminded me that the nineteen centuries that had passed between Jesus's Ascension and the Second Vatican Council were important. We could not dismiss the wisdom and experience of saints, martyrs, scholars, missionaries, and faithful Christians who, like me, had never enjoyed an appearance of the Risen Lord. Writing, editing, compiling, canonizing, reading, and studying the Scriptures are keeping the tradition. And we must, as the same Apostle urged Timothy,

Guard this rich trust with the help of the holy Spirit that dwells within us. (2 Tim:1:14)

I have watched with curiosity the resurgence of tradition in American culture. As a Kentuckian, raised in what was first a frontier, and then a suburb before the City of Louisville annexed Shively, I had grown up with a populist's contempt for country music. I was not country before it was cool, but then I discovered Bill Monroe and Bluegrass music. I heard the musicians speak of their traditional instruments and music, and the challenges they faced from a dominant culture. 

The angry quarrels of today's liberal and conservatives concern the integrity of many American traditions, both our racist, hostility to immigrants and our eager reception of the same immigrants. When we had a continent to defend against foreign aggression we needed millions of immigrants to populate its vast empty spaces, but we had mixed feelings about their strange languages, religions, and customs. Many stayed in the port cities rather than settle the wilderness. The quarrel itself is traditional, quiescent only during the war years, (1941-45.) 

Today, deep into the post-war, atomic, computer, and social media "ages," when anthropologists say we have entered the anthropocentric age, the Catholic Church struggles to teach our youth the value of our religious tradition, especially its apostolic roots. We must remain one, holy, catholic, and apostolic or lose the memory and Spirit of Jesus Christ.  

But this sacred tradition predates Jesus by a long time. He insisted, "I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it." The Mosaic Law was, and remains, the essence of our tradition. 

And Moses hammered the importance of tradition into his followers there in the Sinai desert, 

"Drill this into your children. Speak of (it) at home and abroad. Whether you or busy or at rest." Deuteronomy 6:4

If the children forget, or never learn, our tradition then the whole adventure of escaping Egypt and encountering the Lord in the wilderness will be a dead story. And the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus will mean nothing to anyone. The Crucified will be as dead as Ozymandeus.

And so, today, we celebrate the Apostles Philip and James. We know little about these gentlemen, their parents, families, spouses, or children; their education or their travels. If they wrote anything, their writings are lost. But we remember and honor them as among Jesus's closest companions. They were two of the Twelve who built the Church in Jerusalem despite the violent resistance of civil and religious authorities. According to a non-biblical tradition, all of the apostles were martyred except the youngest, John. 

We confidently believe that our Roman Catholic faith is the faith of the Apostles. We have, in every age, the assurance of the Holy Spirit, that same courage and conviction which we received from our elders and impress upon our children. We still witness God's mighty work among us: his healing, reconciling, and atoning power. The house of the apostles has not collapsed; it is built on rock.