"God will be with us all the days of our life, till the end of the world". With these impromptu words, Benedict XVI ended today’s general audience, dedicated to a reflection on the subject of "tradition", starting from the presence of the Holy Spirit in history. "Through tradition, guaranteed by the ministry of the apostles and their successors, the water of life, poured out of Christ’s chest and salutary blood, reach the men and women of all times". The Pope made a digression to explain that tradition is "a large river that sweeps us" and "tradition is the communion of the devotees around the legitimate pastors through history, a communion that the Holy Spirit feeds by guaranteeing a connection between the experience of the apostolic faith, as experienced in the original community of the disciples, and the current experience of the Christ in His Church". "Tradition is the organic continuity of the Church", added the Holy Father, who, looking at its meaning "from a theological perspective", specified: "This permanent renovation of the active presence of the Lord Jesus in His people, worked by the Holy Spirit and expressed by the Church in the apostolic ministry and the brotherly communion, is what tradition stands for: it is not the mere material handing out of what was donated at the beginning to the apostles, but the effective presence of the Lord Jesus, crucified and resurrected, who escorts and leads in the Spirit the community He has gathered".
