Tradition is so frequently discussed in the modern Church, both for good and for ill. Customs are said to be traditional or not traditional, along with whatever positive or negative connotations those phrases carry depending on the speaker. Songs, books, prayers, music, devotions, and liturgies can be labelled as traditional or "contemporary" (i.e., not traditional). In these contexts, tradition simply means whether something is in keeping with what the Church has always done and believed. But as I reflected on this word, I beagn to consider it in its larger context—that is, not just Catholic Tradition, tradition as such. What do we mean in general when we use the word tradition to refer to something?
There are many definitions we could give; the 2006 Random House Dictionary says tradition is "the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation, esp. by word of mouth or by practice." To boil that down to a more fundamental level, I think we could define tradition this way: Tradition is simply what we've always done.
This is what somebody means when they say, "It's tradition!" The thing in question is something that has simply always been done. In my opinion, the word "simply" is integral to the definition, almost as important as "what we've always done," because, as I contemplated this subject, I realized something: tradition is reflexive. That is, it is unthinking, or "simple." It is not just "what we've always done," but "simply what we've always done"—that is, what we've always done reflexively, unthinkingly, because it was less about what we do as much as a part of who we are.
If these observations hold, then when we look at any tradition, we can identify three stages in its development over time.
Stage 1: Reflexive Tradition
When we carry on a tradition because we have always done it, the tradition does not seem like a tradition to us at the time. Rather, it seems like just what we do; it is part of our daily lives and bound up intimately with who we are, culturally, personally, ethnically, or whatever. For a Catholic living in the Middle Ages, abstaining from meat on Friday was not a "tradition" (though of course it was in the strict theological sense). To the people then living, it was simply a part of life, as normal and predictable as paying taxes or going to the bathroom. This is when tradition is most vibrant, for it is only when traditions are done reflexively, without thinking, can we be certain that the tradition is still in its most virile stage of development. This is because when traditions are lived in this reflexive manner they define who we are and how we think of ourselves, thus becoming part of our very identity.
It is important to point out that in this stage of the devlopment of tradition, nobody rises up to protect the tradition; in fact, nobody even has to consciously hand it on, for it is done automatically. This is because nobody thinks of it as a tradition, either to be attacked or defended or consciously passed on. It's existence is entirely taken for granted because it is part of the social landscape. A example of this kind of tradition today is shaking hands. Everybody shakes hands when meeting; we cannot imagine a world when people do not shake hands. We do not need to defend it nor consciously pass it on, as it's simply part of our social framework. But let's say that in a few decades, hand-shaking starts to become old fashioned and is replaced by some new greeting. Only then will we identify hand shaking as "the traditional way of greeting"; only then will people rise up to defend this venerable tradition of hand-shaking, examine its origins, point out its merits, and attempt to nurture its survival. But by that time it is already on its way out.
So, tradition is originated and passed on reflexively without it being identified as tradition.
Stage 2: "Traditional" Tradition
By and by, as cultures change, there comes a time when traditional practices and beliefs begin to be at variance with the popular culture. Some customs endure, but others have reached the end of their natural lifespan and begin to fade. At this point, the things we have always done change from being "what we do" into the "traditional way of doing things." This leads to a rather striking conclusion: as soon as we realize that something is traditional, that tradition is already on the path to extinction. The identification of something as tradition or traditional suggests it is already moving out of the common experience of life. We may still study it, replicate it, experience it, but its prevalence has shifted outside the mainstream.
Think about all the things we identify as being traditional: a traditional family (working dad, stay at home mom), traditional folk-music, traditional farmstead, traditional Christmas (sleigh rides, singing hymns around the piano by firelight). All we think of as traditional are things that, while they may still exist in little pockets here and there, are for the most part gone, or at least in decline. Sure, we can still get together all our relatives at Christmas, shut the TV off, play piano by firelight and sing hymns while grandma cooks desserts from scratch in the kitchen, but if we wanted to do so, it would have to be quite intentional about it, employing considerable effort and coordination; it certainly would not be reflexive. And thus we have lost our traditional innocence, where we could do these things because "that's just what we do."
It is important to point out that during this stage, traditions, while identified as traditions, are still highly valued and even seen as the ideal. This is the change: the traditions have gone from being the norm to the ideal, from daily experience to a paragon, from reality to exemplar. Consider how many women nowadays often say, "I wish I could stay home with my kids." The tradition is acknowledged, but as something afar off that can at best be grasped after or only replicated with great effort in a minority of circumstances. America from the 1940's to today may serve as an example of a culture in this middle stage of the development of tradition, where a traditional lifestyle is still idealized by increasingly out of reach.
Stage 3: Historical-Tradition
During the third stage, it becomes increasingly obvious that the idealized "traditional way of doing things" is so far removed from the current realities that it ceases even to be an ideal and starts to become a museum piece. As these traditions move back into history, they may even be judged negatively, for the new lifeways that have supplanted them seek validity in denegrating what they are replacing. Culture has shifted so much that there is a radical break with what came before; people look with befuddled confusion and derision upon their own traditions. There may be some who stubbornly cling to the traditions, but the hostility to tradition in the culture forces them to become full-time apologists for their position, knowing it intimately in every detail, masterfully explicating every pro and con and skilled at debating for the tradition out in the public forum. They may win admirers or converts to their position, but even if they do, this is the farthest thing from real tradition that you could imagine: tradition at its most vital is reflexive and unthinking; here in its final stage it is dogmatically defended with great intentionality and mental effort by experts. This is because, as the culture falls farther and farther from its vital origins, the amount of mental effort required to convince people of the validity of their own tradition increases in proportion to the distance between the traditional way of life and the modern status quo.
In the end, the adherents to the traditions become so inconsequential that they begin to look like obscure throwbacks to a bygone era, like the Amish of Ohio.
Catholic Implications
What does this imply for us Traditional Catholics? Well, no matter what we say, there can never be a restoration of tradition, at least not in the sense of a full retrogression to the way it was before. It cannot happen, for a restoration comes only at the expense of great effort, and a tradition imposed with great effort is no real tradition; at best, it is a replica of a tradition, the difference between the true Renaissance and a Renaissance Festival. We can have a Renaissance Festival where all the costumes of the Renaissance are worn, where Renaissance lingo is spoken and Renaissance style is supreme, but we do not have the Renaissance, only a bunch of people happily playing like the Renaissance is still going on. To restore the Renaissance we'd have to...well, actually have another Renaissance.
Similarly, we can't easily get back to where we were—not in our generation at least, and probably not for ten generations, even if we started doing things correctly right now. We can certainly restore discipline, dust off our old books, pick up where we left off, but only with great effort and much resistance from the culture (and dare I say it, Church) at large. And this is a great and necessary start. But to do such will not mean we are simply restoring Tradition. Tradition is a plant, which takes millenia to grow but can be plucked up by the roots by one ungrateful child. It will take a long time for another plant to grow, much less for it to be strong.
So is our case hopeless? No, but it is a far bigger task than we understand. We are struggling and praying and fighting just to do things right. But, once we start doing them right, we'll have to do them that way for a long time. How long? So long that they are passed on to our children unthinkingly, and from them to our grandchildren in a similar way; until our Tradition becomes "simply" who we are; until people do not see us as Traditional Catholics anymore but just Catholics; until so much time has elapsed that nobody can imagine a time when we would have done otherwise; when Modernism in the Church and liturgical progressivism seem as far off and as foreign to our ears as the bizarre Greek rites of Bacchus sound to us today. How long will this take? I don't know, but it will take many generations. But we are in no hurry. The best we can do now is get our own minds and hearts in the right place and set future generations off on the right track, then urge them on with our prayers and intercessions from heaven.
