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CONTENT
Our tradition is alive and growing in the present while greatly enriched and supported by many texts, objects, architectural structures, customs and rituals, modes of thought, expression and action, and relationships and organizations from the past. Because it is alive, it cannot be reduced to a treasury of deposits from the past, though it certainly contains such a treasury. Perhaps the most fruitful way of thinking about the Catholic intellectual tradition is in terms of two aspects: the classic treasures to be cherished, studied, and handed on; and the way of doing things that is the outcome of centuries of experience, prayer, action, and critical reflection.
The classic treasures are like crystallized deposits precipitated out of the living stream. If we reach far back into our history, they include the Scriptures, some primitive formulations of Christian faith and prayer, the rudiments of the rituals of Eucharist and baptism, the most basic elements of church and Christian calendar, and so forth. But based on Scripture, and growing with the centuries, are commentaries on Scripture and elaboration of biblical themes in further expressions, both those that are explicitly religious and those that are more generally exercises of the Christian imagination in art and literature. Based on the primitive formulations of faith, we see through the centuries the elaboration of catechesis, theology, religious drama, fiction, and poetry, and vast systems of Christian philosophy. Based on the primitive formulations of Christian prayer, we can trace whole systems of spirituality with their texts and commentaries, their Rules for living, and their exhortations, their hagiography, devotions, pilgrimages, shrines, and much else. Based on the rudimentary forms of Eucharist and baptism, we see the elaboration through the centuries of a complex sacramental system, whole traditions of liturgy and of sacred music, of church and monastic architecture, of the symbolism of incense, gestures, processions, bells, and vestments.
In the course of time, certain formulations became classic, not to prevent later developments but to form a touchstone against which later developments were to be seen and judged. These certainly include the pronouncements and explanatory texts handed down to us from the great church councils of antiquity, and in a broader sense the whole body of patristic writings, followed by the medieval and modern councils and the writings of the medieval doctors and certain modern theologians. These become classic by being habitually affirmed in retrospect by the discerning Christian community.
Certain figures in history became classic elements of the Christian story and heritage: Helena and Constantine, Macrina and Basil, Monica and Augustine, Benedict and Scholastica, Francis and Clare, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Sienna and Teresa of Avila, to mention but a few whose personal stories are closely interwoven with the history of the Christian people. These are stories not to be forgotten or neglected. They come out of the memory and understanding of generations of believers who resonated with their lives, actions, or teachings.
Likewise, certain texts in literature became classics, throwing light on the Christian journey through history, on Christian faith and life and understanding of the big issues. Immediately coming to mind are: Piers Plowman, The Divine Comedy, The Canterbury Tales, and such modern classics as Murder in the Cathedral, A Man for All Seasons, and Four Quartets. Nor should we exclude from the treasury great Protestant and Orthodox classics like Paradise Lost, The Pilgrim's Progress, and The Brothers Karamazov. The treasures of Christian lyric poetry and hymnody are too many to list.
Much can be said, and more is yet to be discovered, about the treasures of Christian art and architecture, both the explicitly religious and the wider expression in decorative and representative art, in the building of hospitals, pilgrim shelters, schools, and universities, in the structuring of cities, towns, and villages among believers, expressing their hierarchy of values and their vision of reality. There is much to be studied and treasured in music, both sacred and profane, that expresses the Christian consciousness, whether in orchestral, operatic, choral, or chamber music, whether medieval plainchant, Baroque polyphony or modern classical and folk styles. Of course much of this is studied in art history or musicology, but by contemporary academic conventions it tends to be stripped of its religious relevance and studied only from a technical perspective. When these things are appreciated as part of the Christian intellectual heritage, they are studied in a way that tends to integrate the disciplines by relating everything to the meaning of human life in its relationship to the transcendent.
Something similar can be said of the development of experimental science and of technology. We have a heritage in which the development of the printing press, for instance, and the earliest discoveries in genetics were seen in their relationship to the meaning of human life and its ultimate destiny. The very notoriety and conflict generated by Galileo's demonstration of the Copernican hypothesis or Darwin's demonstration of the tenability of the evolutionary thesis testify to the relevance that the natural sciences have had to the integration of human life and knowledge with a spiritual focus.
We have, then, a treasury of many components in the Catholic intellectual tradition that should not be left hidden or unexplored because of the pressure of contemporary busy-ness. It should not be left unexplored. It is enriching, supportive, inspirational, and full of insight and wisdom for present and future generations of Catholic people. There is a further reason for keeping this treasury available and engaged with contemporary reality: it is wealth that the Catholic community holds in trust for the whole human community, whom it may profit in many ways.
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