Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

In today’s gospel, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees because they allow mere human traditions to override God’s law. This may cause some consternation in Catholics because we know that the Church puts a strong emphasis on tradition. Fortunately, the Second Vatican Council provides an answer, specifically in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. According to this document, God’s Revelation comes to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and is interpreted for us by the Magisterium—the teaching office of the Church.

We can see how this comes together in the Gospels as Jesus calls together the Apostles and associates them closely with himself. He teaches them, often giving them special teaching apart from the crowds, and then he sends them out two by two to preach and to heal, just as he has been doing. So basically, he forms them, just like novices in a monastery. Then, at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, we see Jesus commission them: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.

So basically, Jesus trains and commissions the Apostles to continue his mission, and they and their successors, the bishops, become the Magisterium. The primary responsibility of the Magisterium is to teach and interpret Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture for us. Sacred Tradition is what was they learned from Jesus during his life and even after the Resurrection. And Sacred Scripture is the Jewish Scriptures, the Old Testament, that gives witness to the Messiah, and what the Apostles wrote about their experience, the New Testament.

So, the Tradition that the Church looks to is no mere human invention, but was given to us by Jesus himself, and is maintained by the Magisterium with the help of the Holy Spirit. Of course, there are also human traditions to be found in Church practices, such as the art of a particular era, but Tradition in the Sacred sense is something else indeed.

Reflection by Fr. Aquinas Keusenkothen, OSB