Focus - Tradition

Sometimes cultures lose a ‘collective memory’; for instance, people fail to remember the true meaning of a national holiday.

The collective memory of the meaning of Anzac Day faltered after Australia left the Vietnam War (a war that went ‘off script’ in the national ‘psyche’) in the 1970s due to ‘war fatigue’. It’s meaning had morphed from remembering our fallen soldiers to a day away from work. Dawn services and memorial gatherings had diminished because people had forgotten the valour, tragic defeat, yet personal sacrifice that had occurred in 1915. However, by the 1990s with a refocus on shared values and meaning regarding the Anzacs, Anzac Day began to revitalise. By the 2000s dawn service numbers swelled both at Gallipoli and in every town across the country and these have become a right of passage among the young… a nation remembered… lest we forget.

Tradition matters and represents a critical piece of any culture. It helps form the structure and foundation of groups. It reminds us that we are part of a history that defines our past, shapes who we are today, and who we are likely to become. When we ignore the meaning of tradition, we’re in danger of damaging the underpinning of our identity and who we are. In a Catholic school this is what it means ’to be Catholic’.

In the Catholic tradition, memory and proclaiming of memory are crucial. Through tradition, ritual and practice, we remember who we are and Whom we believe in. We remember in the Mass, through God’s Word, a sacred story is received, meditated on, contemplated, read and put into effect in our lives. In the tradition of the creed, we proclaim aloud our shared beliefs as a Christian community in the form of core tenets. This is who we are! This is what we believe! This is where we are journeying to! We remember too the words Jesus used at the Last Supper over bread and wine, and God’s coming to dwell among us, particularly in the transformation of bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood. This is a living reality.

Without an understanding of such a living two-thousand-year-old tradition, our faith becomes a hollow ritual and empty words. Just like the waning Anzac Days of the 1970s we forget who we are and where we came from. More importantly, we lose sight of where we may be going, and who we are likely to become, and hopefully that is to become saints.

Gary Reen

Assistant Director - SEACS